


A Curious Sort of Bird

by hollyanneg



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jane Eyre Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Modern Setting, Simon POV, Some Magical Elements, character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 17:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17729219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyanneg/pseuds/hollyanneg
Summary: Fresh out of school, Simon becomes an at-home tutor for a sick little girl. He finds himself falling in love with his student’s prickly older brother, but it turns out Baz has a secret that could ruin everything.





	A Curious Sort of Bird

**Now**

I woke up to early morning light with a burning certainty that Baz Pitch was in my room. I’d just caught a glimpse of him. I’d just felt his presence.

           

As I blinked awake, the sensation began to fade. He wasn’t there. I’d been dreaming about him, like I did most nights. I rolled over and realised that my alarm hadn’t gone off. I was in danger of being late to work.

           

Five minutes later, I was out the door, tugging on my coat and running a hand through my hair. Just another grey, autumn day on the outskirts of Sheffield.

 

           

I wasn’t late.

           

The thing I liked about my job, really liked, was that the kids were always happy to see me. It was like a wonderful surprise every day. “Mr. S! You’re here!” As if I might not be.

           

I honestly loved them. They were the bright spot in an otherwise dull life. So I didn’t mind having to wake up so early and spend seven hours stuck inside under fluorescent lighting every day. I liked seeing how distinct their personalities were already, at age 5 or 6, and how funny, sweet, and intuitive they were. I liked the feeling that I was really helping them.

           

I’d only been working at the school for a few months, and I didn’t know the other teachers very well. At lunch, I always sat with Agatha Wellbelove, my best friend in Sheffield. She usually complained all through lunch about the bad food or the snarky office ladies or the staff meetings we had to go to. I just nodded along.

 

           

That afternoon, we sat in the teachers’ room, and I was flipping through a primary reader trying to decide what to do with my class next week. I couldn’t focus on planning, so I ended up reading the same page over and over, then staring blankly out the window.

           

Breaking the silence, Agatha said, “You don’t like it here, do you?”

           

I flinched, startled. “What? No, it’s fine.”

           

She rolled her eyes at my lie. “I know you don’t like it, Simon. It’s obvious. That’s okay. I don’t like it here either.”

           

“It’s _your_ school,” I said.

           

She didn’t seem offended. “No, it’s my parents’ school, and I’ve been thinking of leaving.”

           

“Quitting?”

           

She closed her book. “Quitting and leaving. Moving away. I’m sick of this town. I’m ready for some adventure.”

           

I had planned loads of adventures with Baz then never gone on any of them. He was still the only travel companion I really wanted, even though that was stupid and dangerous.

           

Anyway, I didn’t know what to say to her. She didn’t wait for a reply. “I’ve been thinking about asking you out,” she said, without preface.

           

She couldn’t be serious, but I played along. “Is that your idea of an adventure?”

           

She shrugged. “I could do it, and we could go to a movie in town and eat Italian for dinner and then go home and sleep. And we could do that every weekend for a year, then get married, buy the house next door to my parents’ and have a bunch of babies.”

           

It didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. Or the best.

           

She went on. “But I can tell that you feel the way I do. You want more than that. You’re dreaming of being somewhere else.” She leaned across the table, grabbing my hands and looking at me with wide eyes. “Let’s run away together. Let’s go to America. California. We can spend every single day on the beach. We could actually get a tan.”

           

I laughed.

           

“I’m serious!” she said. “Think about it! Wouldn’t that be better than this? Wouldn’t anything be better than this?”

           

I didn’t know what to say. I managed to say the wrong thing anyway. “I thought you liked Oliver.” An upper-school teacher she was always flirting with.

           

“I do,” she said. “But he’s happy here. He wants to stay, so he’s no good to me. And anyway, I like you too.”

           

I thought I ought to feel bitter about being basically her second choice, but I didn’t really feel anything at all.

           

“Just say you’ll think about it,” she said, letting go of my hands.

           

“Okay,” I said.

           

I didn’t think about it.

           

There wasn’t anything keeping me in Sheffield. No family, only a few friends. I wouldn’t quit on my students, but I could easily leave at the end of the year. I just couldn’t see myself in California. I was always pulled in another direction entirely.

 

 

**Then**

           

The summer I graduated from uni, I was desperately looking for a teaching job. I applied to loads of schools but wasn’t getting many interviews. One night I stayed up late combing through every site I could think of, and I came across an odd listing that I applied to almost as an afterthought. Someone in Hampshire was advertising for a teacher for an 11-year-old girl who was homebound due to chronic illness. The ad said: _This is a full-time position. Education degree required. Yearly salary £30,000, housing provided_.

           

I couldn’t really imagine teaching only one child all the time. I was technically qualified to teach students a bit younger than 11, but I guessed it couldn’t hurt to apply. The _housing provided_ part was especially interesting to me.

           

Rather than having an online application link, there were phone numbers to call if interested. The first one was listed with the name T. Basilton Grimm-Pitch. An absurdly posh name. I supposed it would have to be a rich family, if they could afford to hire a full-time, private tutor. The second name listed was Penelope Bunce, which sounded a bit less intimidating, so she was the one I called.

           

Our first conversation was only a few minutes long, her asking me to email her a few documents. But our second conversation lasted for more than an hour. She was technically interviewing me, but we kept going off on tangents about favourite books and TV shows and things like that, and we ended up laughing hysterically when we compared notes about our primary school teachers. _This is somebody I’d like to work for_ , I thought. She told me she would get back to me soon, and sure enough, three days later, she offered me the job. “There were a few applicants with more experience than you,” she said, “but since you’re going to be spending so much time one-on-one with Mordelia, I really felt it was important to choose someone with the right personality, and Mr. Pitch agrees. I think you’re the best fit.”

           

I accepted immediately, and we started talking about logistics (“we can offer you a moving bonus if needed… Will you be available at the beginning of September?”). I asked, “Did you say the student’s name is Cordelia?”

           

“ _Mor_ delia,” she said. “It’s a family name. Unfortunately for her.”

           

Mordelia and Basilton. Amazing. “Yours isn’t so bad,” I told Penny.

           

She laughed. “I’m from a different family.”

           

           

So I went to Hampshire at the beginning of September. Penny had given me an address, but she said, “If you get lost, better to just ask for Pitch Manor.” I took a combination of trains, buses, and finally a cab to get there, and the cab driver was indeed more familiar with Pitch Manor than the street address I gave him. “Odd place, that,” he said, shaking his head. “Why are you going there?”

           

The house was a few kilometres outside a small village, and maybe half an hour from Winchester. The cab driver dropped me at the end of a long drive instead of taking me all the way up to the house. “Don’t like to get too close,” he said.

           

I could sort of see why when the house came into view. It was tall and imposing. The grey stone was darkened with age. Something about the steep angles of the house, the oddness of its placement among green fields, and the way it loomed over everything, made me not want to go inside.

           

I did, of course. Penny greeted me at the door, asking all about my trip and saying how glad she was to meet me. She wasn’t quite what I expected from our phone conversations. She was Indian, outspoken, and purple-haired. I loved her immediately.

           

The house was creepy inside, too— dark with old, heavy doors that made the rooms seem like they didn’t want to be entered. The décor was old-fashioned, and I thought I saw faces looming out of every dark corner (I realised later they were gargoyles). Penny took me up to my room, which was fortunately a lot less scary. It was fairly plain, with blue walls and rug-covered floors, a double bed and a chest of drawers, a bookshelf and a closet. It was bigger and nicer than any room I’d ever had.

           

“Will this be all right?” she asked.

           

“It’s perfect!” I said.

           

I didn’t meet Mordelia until the next day. I hadn’t been told about the nature of her illness, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Was she bed-ridden? Could she walk? All Penny had told me during the interview was that she could work at a Year 6 level in reading and maths, but she told me more just before introducing us. Mordelia suffered from frequent seizures that weren’t completely controlled by the medication she took. It had caused enough disruptions in her schooling that her brother had pulled her out of school two years earlier and hired someone to teach her at home.

           

I expected her to be a bit shy, since she spent so much time alone, but instead, she was a bit brazen and sassy and immediately took me to her room to see the video game she’d been playing. She told me that she wanted to read “fun books” and play games in her lessons.

           

We started three days later. Penny and I had agreed that Mordelia’s school day should be shorter than a traditional one, since she had no other children to work with. It was a lot all on her. So for about five hours a day, not including a lunch break, she and I sat in a specifically dedicated (and very well-equipped) schoolroom and did all the usual subjects—maths, English, history. I made sure to take her outside at least once a day; I called these our “field trips” and usually incorporated them into our daily science lesson. Somebody else came about once a week to teach her French and piano.

           

Penny had instructed me on what to do if Mordelia had a seizure. Keep her from hurting herself—hitting her head or something like that. Move her onto her side so she could breathe. Keep track of how long it lasted. Call for help if she was unconscious for more than a couple of minutes afterwards. This happened occasionally, and it terrified me every time, and I tried not to lose my head. But she was usually completely fine after a seizure, and I privately thought that she probably _could_ go back to school, as long as the school was understanding about her situation.

 

           

I gathered that Mordelia’s parents were dead. “They’ve had a lot of awful luck in this family,” Penny told me privately. “Baz’s mother died young, then his father remarried—his second wife was Mordelia’s mum—and they both died in a car accident about three years ago.”

           

“How awful,” I said.

           

Mordelia mentioned them sometimes, in a fairly casual way. Once, I told her that I didn’t know my parents and wasn’t sure if they were still alive. I thought maybe it’d be a bond between us. Both of us orphans. I hoped she would know that she could talk to me if she was ever sad about it.

           

She just said, “How do you not know your parents?”

           

“They gave me up,” I said. “I was raised in care homes.”

           

“That sounds terrible,” she said.

           

“It wasn’t great,” I agreed.

           

Mordelia did have some family, at least. She mentioned aunts and cousins, and she talked constantly about her older brother. I eventually realised that he was the other person mentioned in the ad. T. Basilton Grimm-Pitch. I knew that Mordelia’s name was just Grimm. Penny usually referred to the brother as just “Mr. Pitch” when she was being formal and “Baz” when she wasn’t. I supposed the name difference was because they had different mothers.

           

Mordelia said that her brother was travelling. I asked Penny about it one night. I thought it was odd that he would leave his little sister given she didn’t have any parents. Penny confirmed that he was currently travelling around Africa. “He’s a financial consultant,” she said. “He can do that from anywhere.”

           

“Why isn’t he here?” I asked.

           

“I don’t think he much likes it here,” she said.

           

I gathered that she and he had gone to secondary school together and stayed friends. He’d offered Penny a free place to live if she would look after Mordelia and the family estate while he was gone. “I’m part housekeeper and part nanny,” she said. She was getting her master’s degree in literature and women’s studies online at the same time. “I’d hate to leave Mordy, but I don’t want to do this forever,” she said. I told her I understood.

           

One thing I learned quickly was that there wasn’t much to do around Pitch Manor when I wasn’t working. I spent most evenings with Penny. We made fast friends. Normally, though, we were just doing our own thing while sitting in the same room—her studying and me watching shows or surfing the internet. In between, we talked about a little bit of everything. School, work, what we wanted to do in the future. She told me about her enormous, slightly annoying family. I told her that I wished I could find mine.

           

“Are they called Snow?” she asked.

           

“Probably. I don’t know,” I said.

           

Some nights, when she was busy, I walked to the village and went to the lone pub for a pint. I made friends with all the sheep farmers and local teenage delinquents who hung out there. Within a few weeks, I’d walk in and hear my name being called from a few different directions.

           

Sometimes on my days off, I borrowed Penny’s car and drove to Winchester just for a change of scene. But if I stayed at home, I tended to wander around the estate, which stretched over a few kilometres and was quite pretty. I carried my camera around and took pictures of anything I found interesting. This had always been one of my favourite pastimes. One day, I walked all the way to the nearest neighbour’s house, and that was how I met Ebb, who raised goats and always made me tea and cried whenever she talked about her favourite soap opera.

           

After a few months, all of this was starting to get a bit dull.

 

           

One night, there was a knock at my door around 11:30. I was curled up in bed in my pyjamas playing Candy Crush. Before I could get to the door, it opened, and Mordelia was there, all wide eyes and pouting mouth. “Mr. Snow?” she said.

           

I was surprised. She never came to my room. “All right, Mordelia?” I said.

           

“I can’t sleep,” she told me.

           

I got up and went over to her, concerned. “Nightmare?”

           

She shook her head. “Just can’t sleep.”

           

“Are you worried about something?” She didn’t say. “Is everything all right?”

           

Her eyes filled with tears. “I miss my brother,” she said softly.

           

I gave her a hug. “I’m sorry,” I said. I wondered if, despite being her teacher, she saw me as a bit of a substitute brother. And then I tried to think what I could do for her. “Why don’t we call him?” I suggested.

           

“It’s night time,” she said.

           

“Where is he right now? Do you know?”

           

“Egypt,” she said.

           

 _Wow_ , I thought. “Okay, let’s check what time it is in Egypt.” I retrieved my phone and looked it up. “Only 10:30,” I told her. “I bet he’s still awake.”

           

I took Mordelia back to her room. She had her own phone, which I thought was a bit mad since she was only 11, but whatever. I sat with her as she tapped her brother’s contact name and waited. She held the phone a bit away from her ear, and I heard the moment when it stopped ringing and a male voice came over the line. “Baz?” she said. “Are you awake?” I couldn’t hear his reply. After a moment, she said, “I can’t sleep.” And then, “Mr. Snow’s here. He said I should call you.”

           

I wondered if he’d think that was overstepping. He was my boss, technically, and we’d never even met. Was I allowed to tell his sister to call him?

           

She started telling him about her day, and I stood up to leave, but she stopped me and said, “Please stay.” Then, to her brother, “No, I’m talking to Mr. Snow. What? Well, he’s just sitting here, what else?”

           

So I sat with her until she hung up the phone a few minutes later, and by then, she was all smiles. “Better?” I asked, and she nodded emphatically. She lay back down in bed, and again, I stood to go, but she said, “Will you sing me something? My brother used to do that when he’d put me to bed.”

           

So I ended up singing a Beatles song, not sure what else to do. I felt a bit awkward, but she seemed pleased, and after that, she let me go.

 

           

A few weeks later, it was Christmas. I thought Mr. Pitch would surely come home, and I was a bit shocked when he didn’t. I was beginning to resent him a bit. What kind of man wouldn’t come home to spend the holidays with his parentless little sister?

           

Mordelia went to visit her cousins instead, and Penny went home. I was alone for almost a week. On Christmas Day, Ebb invited me around for crackers and cake and Doctor Who.

           

I was pleased when the girls came back. I’d been lonely.

 

           

January started off grey and stormy. We were stuck indoors, and after a couple of weeks, all of us were going a little stir-crazy. As soon as a clear night came, I escaped to the village just so I’d have someone to talk to besides the girls. After two rounds of pints, I regretfully said goodnight and headed home.

           

As I walked, I finally let myself think about the fact that I wasn’t very happy. I _should_ be happy, I thought guiltily. It was a good job. I liked my student. It was a nice house, if strange. I kept sighing, and every time, I felt ridiculous. I had Penny for company. Penny, already the best friend I’d ever had. So what if she didn’t always have time for me?

           

I was so much better off than I’d been before. I was stupid for being ungrateful. So what if the house was isolated? So what if every day was the same? I wouldn’t go back to my past life for anything.

           

I just wanted a little excitement, but it was a silly thing to wish for.

           

I turned off the road to the village onto a smaller lane that led to Pitch Manor and several farms. I was approaching a little wooded area when I heard a car coming up behind me. I moved to the side a bit. Then there was a sudden, loud POP, like someone had shot a cap gun. I jumped, and the car barrelled past me, swerved off the road, and shuddered to a stop in the brush.

           

Startled, I stayed where I was. The driver’s door swung open, and someone tall and thin sprang out, dashed around the side of the car, then swore loudly enough for me to hear.

           

I took a few tentative steps closer, calling out, “Hello? Are you all right?”

           

No reply. I walked over to the car, and even in the dark, I could tell it was nice, some kind of dark-coloured sports car. Its owner was crouched on the passenger side where I couldn’t really see him.

           

I tried again. “Need some help?”

           

“You can’t help me,” the man said harshly.

           

Just like that, I was annoyed. But not annoyed enough to leave. At least this was a little exciting. “I can try,” I said.

           

The man stood up. “Unless you happen to be carrying a spare tyre with you, you can’t help me.” Now he sounded a little nicer, but deeply tired. “Though, actually, do you have a phone? Mine’s dead.”

           

 _Anyone else would,_ I thought. Mine had died permanently, and I’d been putting off buying a new one. “No,” I said, “but you can come up to the house and make a call. I live just over there.” I pointed in the direction of the manor.

           

“You live just over there?” He came closer, examining me, and now I could see him, too, in the reddish cast of his taillights. He had a sharp, aristocratic face, stormy eyes, and dark eyebrows, one cocked at me as if he was deeply unimpressed with what he was seeing. His long hair was black as night. Just looking at him made me want to turn and run, but I held my ground. “Where’s that, then?” he asked.

           

“Pitch Manor. The terrifying Gothic house off the road up there.”

           

“It’s Victorian,” he said. “ _You_ live at Pitch Manor?” I bristled at his tone; clearly he didn’t think I belonged in a house like that. “Who on earth are you?”

           

I stood up straighter. “I’m Simon Snow. I tutor Mr. Pitch’s sister.” _Take that._

           

One hand on his hip, he smiled just a little. “Oh, the tutor.” A pause. “You must know Mr. Pitch quite well, then.”

           

I thought about lying, but instead I shrugged. “No, actually. He doesn’t live there.” When he didn’t respond, I said, “Well, do you want to come up to the house and make a call?”

           

“I suppose I will,” he said. I sort of wished he hadn’t. Would I have to make conversation with him while we walked? Would he mock me again? Would Penny mind me bringing a stranger home?

           

But the man didn’t say anything as we walked. He turned into the drive without me telling him to. He’d been there before.

           

When we reached the house, I unlocked the front door and led him into the enormous, intimidating entryway. He smirked at the gargoyles on the staircase, and then he smirked at me as I said, “Wait here just a minute, will you? I’m going to find Penny—er, Ms. Bunce.”

           

Penny looked surprised when I told her there was a man in the foyer wanting to use our phone, but she headed off to speak to him, and then Mordelia was lurking at the lounge door, wanting to show me something. I never went back to the foyer. I wondered if the man had gotten the help he needed.

 

           

The next morning, Penny laughed as soon as she saw me. “Simon Snow, do you know who you brought into the house last night?”

           

I was alarmed. “No. Someone you don’t like?”

           

“You brought the _owner_ of the house into the house and left him waiting in his own front hall.” She laughed some more.

           

I didn’t quite get it. “He owns the house? Wait, who is he?”

           

She shook her head at me. “That was Baz! Mr. Pitch.”

           

The mysterious Mr. Pitch. I hadn’t known what he looked like, since there were hardly any photographs in the house. I hadn’t expected him to be my age. I didn’t quite know what to say. “Am I in trouble?” I asked. “Is he angry?”

           

“Oh, no, Simon,” she said quickly. “Don’t worry. He thought it was funny. Anyway, he wants to speak to you later today.”

           

That turned out not to be until after dinner. All day, the phone rang constantly, and people streamed in and out of the house. Apparently Mr. Pitch had been away long enough that there were loads of people wanting to see him. I gave Mordelia the afternoon off from lessons so she could be with him. “I haven’t seen him in a _year_ ,” she said.

           

I thought she might be exaggerating, but maybe not. “I know you missed him,” I said.

           

“I always miss him,” she said.

           

I wandered around outside for a lot of the afternoon, bored as ever, even though the house had suddenly come alive. I ate dinner alone that night. I couldn’t find the girls. I supposed they were with Mr. Pitch. Penny came looking for me as I was washing my dishes. “Where’ve you been?” she asked. An ironic question, since I’d been looking for her.

           

“Here,” I said.

           

“Well, come on, Baz wants to meet you properly.”

           

She took me to the lounge, and Mordelia immediately accosted me. “Can you believe what he brought me?” She shoved a large box into my arms, and it seemed to be some kind of elaborate Lego set. “Hogwarts!” she said. “Will you help me build it?”

           

From the other end of the room, a deep, sardonic voice said, “He can help you later, Mordy. I need to speak to Mr. Snow now.”

           

I looked up, and the man from last night was sitting in one of the vast armchairs, looking at us with displeasure. What did he have to be displeased about? I kept myself from glaring at him. “We’ll definitely build it,” I promised her.

           

Mr. Pitch said, “Penny, will you keep her occupied for a minute?”

           

Did he consider his sister a nuisance, I wondered? Was that why he left her alone so much? I already disliked him, I decided, as he gestured me to the chair across from his and I took it. Penny and Mordelia sat in another corner of the room, sorting through Lego pieces. “Don’t do it without me!” I called over to them.

           

And then I was left with Mr. Pitch. He looked me over in that same way he had the night before, slightly dissatisfied. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to discuss, and even though I was annoyed, I decided to try to be friendly. “We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Simon Snow.” I held out my hand, and we shook. “I’m sorry for the mix-up last night.”

           

“Mix-up?” Eyebrow raised.

           

“Me not knowing who you were.”

           

He made a dismissive gesture. “Well, I didn’t say, did I?”

           

Nope.

           

He obviously wasn’t going to expand on that, so I said, “Mordelia seems happy that you’re back.”

           

He glanced at her. “We haven’t seen each other in a while. How long have you been here, Snow?”

           

I bristled a bit at him calling me that. It felt demeaning. “Four months,” I said.

           

“Of course. You started in September?”

           

“Yes.”

           

Looking past me again, he said, “Mordelia has been telling me today about her lessons. It seems you do a lot of different things with her.”

           

This was solid ground. I knew what to say. “I try to vary the lessons. I think it’d be quite boring for her if we did the same things every day, especially since it’s just her and me.”

           

“Have you taught children at home before?”

           

“No, this is my first job out of uni—” slightly embarrassing— “but I was a teaching assistant as part of my course.”

           

“What university did you attend? I’ve seen your CV, but I don’t remember.” It seemed like he was looking anywhere but at me—ceiling, window, floor. It was distracting.

           

“Central Lancashire,” I said.

           

That made him look at me. “Your accent isn’t Lancashire. Where are you from?”

           

I shrugged. “All over really.”

           

“That’s not much of an answer,” he said.

           

“It’s true.”

           

He looked away again to fiddle with an empty cigar box on the side table. “What was the cause of all that moving around?”

           

 _Sure, straight into my tragic backstory,_ I thought. “I grew up in care homes, sir. Got shuffled around a bit.” I bit my tongue—I hadn’t meant to call him sir. He couldn’t be much older than me. He was just so formal that it slipped out.

           

“I see,” he said. “No family, then?”

           

“I’ve got a father somewhere,” I said bluntly. “He couldn’t take care of me.” Or didn’t want to, more likely. He’d dropped me at a home when I was three.

           

“I’m sorry to pry,” said Mr. Pitch, not sounding particularly sorry.

           

I shrugged again, which made him frown.

           

“Could you tell me a bit more about how you’ve structured my sister’s lessons?” he asked. So I spent a few minutes explaining the different subjects I covered with her, how I was trying to make sure she was learning at the same level she would be in a traditional school. I talked about the different pedagogical techniques I preferred, dropping in some jargon in hopes of sounding impressive. He just nodded along and finally said, “That sounds quite satisfactory, Snow.” Then he paused, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to say more. “She’s told me that she likes you much better than her previous teacher.”

           

I smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m fond of her, too.”

           

He leaned back in his chair and changed the subject. “Do you mind living here? I know it isn’t close to anything.”

           

I didn’t admit to my boredom. “It’s pretty countryside,” I said. “And the house is nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived.”

           

“What do you do to keep yourself occupied?”

           

“When I’m not teaching?” He nodded. “Well. Um. I read some. I go for walks. I take a lot of photographs while I’m wandering about.”

           

He nodded. “I’d forgotten—Mordelia showed me one you took of her. It was very nicely framed.” He said this stiffly, like he was unused to giving compliments, but he’d given me one already. “Could I see some of your others?”

           

I was surprised. “You want to?”

           

“If they’re of this area—”

           

I went to my room and got the box where I kept most of my developed pictures. I brought it back to him, and he spent a few minutes looking through them, not speaking. He lingered over a photo of one of Ebb’s goats. “This one’s fantastic,” he said, and he sounded like he actually meant it. “The way you’ve thrown the background out of focus. That’s the sort of thing I can never manage to do when I take pictures.”

           

“It’s not too difficult if you have the right sort of camera,” I said.

           

“What sort do you have?”

           

“Just a basic Canon digital,” I said.

           

“DSLR?”

           

“Uh—no, I can’t afford that.” I blushed from embarrassment and from the sharp way he looked at me. I hoped he didn’t think I was complaining about my salary.         

           

“You do well with what you have, then,” he said. He closed the box and handed it back to me, and just like that, it was clear the conversation was over. He went over to where the girls were still playing and said, “About your bedtime, isn’t it, Mordy?” And the two of them left the room together.

 

           

The next night, late, Mordelia was in bed, and Penny had disappeared to her room to study. I’d gone into the kitchen for a snack and ended up sitting at the table watching Netflix on my ancient uni laptop. At some point, there was noise in the hall, and then the door swung open. It was Mr. Pitch. I jumped, startled, and nearly knocked my glass off the table. He gave me one of his haughty looks—I was getting used to them. It made me think twice about being friendly, but I paused my video and said hello anyway.

           

“What are you doing in here?”

           

“Just hanging out,” I said. “You?”

           

“Wandering around. Bored,” he said. He came over and sat down with me, which surprised me, and his face shifted into a more downcast expression.

           

“Are you happy to be home?” I asked, though I suspected the answer was no.

           

“This house is just so quiet and gloomy,” he said, slumping onto the table. “Or—you said terrifying, didn’t you? The other night?”

           

I flushed. “Ah, sorry.”

           

“You’re not wrong,” he said. Then, “What are you watching?”

           

I was slightly embarrassed. “It’s a baking competition show.”

           

“Can I watch with you?”

           

That surprised me, but I said, “Sure.”

           

He said, “Let’s go in the lounge. It’s more comfortable.”

           

I wondered if he’d come to the kitchen looking for me, or if he’d really just been walking around aimlessly.

           

In the lounge, we settled on opposite ends of the sofa, and I set my laptop on a footstool, ironically in front of an enormous TV. I explained to Mr. Pitch what had been happening on the show. “… And now the challenge is soufflés, and Betty’s convinced that Alan dropped something on purpose to make hers collapse, so there’s drama.”

           

We watched the rest of that episode and all of the next one. He didn’t say much, just quietly laughed at their theatrics and made little comments like, “Those are the ugliest profiteroles I’ve ever seen.”

           

After the second episode, he stood abruptly and said, “Think I’ll turn in.”

 

           

This became a bit of a thing with us. At night, if the girls weren’t around, we’d sit in the lounge together and watch Netflix. We made our way through the rest of the baking show and moved on to home improvement shows. Mr. Pitch had very strong opinions about interior design, preferring light-coloured walls and no wallpaper and a lot of natural light—the opposite of his own house.

           

When we were alone like that, he didn’t talk to me about anything besides the show. I found it difficult to make conversation, too. Once he caught me staring at him while trying to think of something to say, and he smirked and asked if I thought he was nice to look at. I rolled my eyes and barely stopped myself from calling him an insufferable git. These late-night sessions were making me forget that he was my employer.

           

On nights when Penny wasn’t off studying, or sometimes before Mordelia went to bed, we’d all hang out together, and he was a lot chattier with them there. Sometimes he’d ask me about my childhood, which I never wanted to talk about, and usually Penny was quick to change the subject. But more often he told us about whatever book he’d been reading or asked to see more of my photos. I asked him a lot about places he’d been. Like Penny had told me, he’d spent the past eight months travelling with his best friend, Niall, who was going on without him now that Mr. Pitch was back at home.

           

One night, he dragged me to the library and started pulling books off the shelves and handing them to me. “All about travel,” he explained. “Since you’re so interested.”

           

“Reading about places. Next best thing to going,” I joked.

           

He gave me half a smile. “You’ll go. Someday.”

           

           

It turned out that Mr. Pitch’s room was next to mine. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, I often heard him leave the room and walk down the hall towards the stairs. It happened so many times that I began to be curious, and once I peered out into the hallway to see what he was doing. I caught a glimpse of him just as he disappeared down the stairs. He was fully dressed like he was going out. The next time, instead of looking into the hall, I looked out the window, and sure enough, after a minute, he appeared. Instead of going to his car, he walked off into the field in front of the house and vanished.

           

During the day, I rarely saw him. Occasionally he came to the schoolroom door and watched me with Mordelia. Whenever I knew he was there, I smiled at him to let him know he could come in, but he never did.

 

           

One night he was on some kind of work call until nearly 11, so I went up to my room, assuming I’d be on my own for Netflix bingeing. But only a few minutes later, he knocked softly. I was surprised. He didn’t usually seek me out—we just gravitated towards each other inevitably at some point in the evening.

           

“Want to see something amazing?” he asked.

           

“Always,” I said.

           

He took me up to the third floor, where I hardly ever went. There was a large, mostly empty room at the end of the hall that had enormous windows. Next to one of them was a telescope. “It’s a clear night, for once,” he said. “Want to look?”

           

He opened one window and shivered when a breeze blew in. He leaned down and looked into the telescope and started making adjustments. Then he called me over. “What do you want to see first?”

           

“Anything. Everything.” I was excited. I’d never used a telescope before.

           

“I always forget what’s where,” he said, “but—” He picked up a large, folded map from a window seat and showed it to me. “The night sky.” He looked it over for a minute then swivelled the telescope around a bit and peered into it. “Here’s Polaris. Take a look.”

           

Through the lens, I saw a ball of flame. “It’s so close,” I said.

           

He showed me a few others—Sirius, Vega, and Castor and Pollux, which were binary stars—two close together, in the process of merging. They seemed to be moving even as we watched them.

           

“Can we look at a planet?” I asked.

           

He found Mars for me, and though it looked a little like the stars, it had a distinct reddish cast. “Wicked!” I said.

           

I looked up to find him watching me closely, and he smiled at my excitement.

           

Finally, we looked at the moon for a bit. I loved seeing the craters up close. When we finally went back downstairs, I asked, “Can we do this again on the next clear night?”

           

“Anytime you want, Snow,” he said.

 

           

It was maybe a week or so later, on a Saturday, that I went over to see Ebb and discovered something odd on my way back. I’d detoured into the field in front of the house because I wasn’t ready to go in yet. I almost tripped over a mound of something, and when I bent down to see what it was, I realised it was a heap of dead rats. It wasn’t just disgusting, but properly confounding because they looked… wrong. They were shrivelled like raisins. I wondered what on earth could do that to a rat. Several rats. All at once in the same place.

           

I walked on and forgot about it.

           

           

The day I got my March salary, I finally went out and bought a phone. It was a cheap, basic model. I hardly had anyone to call or text, so I didn’t much care. It was just nice to finally have something.

           

That same day when I came back home, Mr. Pitch was in the front hall with a visitor, very clearly trying to get him to leave. He was a thin blond man who looked a lot older than he probably was. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t place who.

           

Mr. Pitch seemed relieved that I was there. He didn’t want to be alone with this man, clearly. He introduced him as Nicodemus. Just then, Penny came in to say Mr. Pitch had a phone call, so he left us standing there.

           

I tried to think of something to say and came up with, “How do you know Mr. Pitch?”

           

“My sister lives nearby,” he said. “Interesting area, innit? How long’ve you been living here?”

           

“Just a few months,” I said.

           

He grinned at me. “I think you’ll find this place is full of secrets.” He tapped his canine tooth, which was unusually sharp. I shuddered involuntarily. “Even your Mr. Pitch has his secrets,” he said.

           

I wanted to say that he wasn’t _my_ Mr. Pitch.

           

Nicodemus turned towards the door. “I’ve got to be going. Best of luck with all of it.” And just like that, he was gone. When Mr. Pitch came back to the hall, he sneered at the door and said, “Good riddance.”

 

           

Very early one morning, I woke up halfway after hearing a crash. I woke up all the way when I realised I could smell smoke. I sprang out of bed. Was the house on fire? But soon I realised it was coming from outside. There was an eerie orange glow out my window. I needed to warn someone.

           

Without really thinking, I rushed down the hall to Mr. Pitch’s room. His door was flung open, and the room was empty. I thought about his midnight rambles and began to worry even more. Was he out in the inferno?

           

I didn’t go back for my shoes. I ran downstairs, out the door, and towards the wooded area near the road, near where I’d first met him.

           

There must have been at least a dozen trees already burning. Was he there? Maybe he wasn’t, and I was running into danger for nothing, but I just had a feeling—

           

And I was right. I saw his familiar figure outlined by the fire. He was standing still in the middle of it.

           

“Mr. Pitch!” I yelled. “What are you doing?” He turned towards me but stayed where he was. “I can help you put it out!” I called, even though I wasn’t sure about that. When he still didn’t move, I took a deep breath and ran into the trees, not stopping until I was next to him, tugging on his arm. “What are you doing?” I said again. “Run!”

           

He looked at me, and his expression was distant and sorrowful. “Snow, go away,” he said. His voice was hoarse from the smoke.

           

“What? Not without you. Come on.” I tugged again. He was immoveable.

           

“Seriously, go. I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said. He pulled his arm out of my grasp.

           

“Do you want _you_ to get hurt?” When I met his eyes again, I realised that he did. Had he set the fire himself? Or was it an accident he was using as a means to an end?

           

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Please leave.” He looked like he was contemplating how to get rid of me. I was contemplating what to say to a person who didn’t want to live anymore.

           

“Come with me,” I said uselessly. “Who’ll tell me what books to read? Who’ll admire my pictures? You know you’re the only one who likes them. And you know Mordelia would miss you.”

           

He huffed. “She’d miss the presents.”

           

“No, she’d miss you. So would Penny. So would I.”

           

“Would you?” His voice turned distant again, and he looked away from me.

           

The flames were licking closer. I began to panic. “So help me, if you won’t come on your own, I’ll carry you out of here.” Just then, a spark caught the bottom of my pyjama bottoms.    

 

That seemed to bring him out of his daze. “Snow, you absolute moron, are you really going to get yourself killed for my sake?” He kicked at my leg until the flame extinguished, then he took my hand, and we both ran for the house.

           

My leg was burned, but I didn’t have time to care. Mr. Pitch flung himself on the front stairs, but I was preoccupied with the fire. “Do you have a garden hose?” I asked desperately. “I’ll try to put it out.”

           

He looked up at me through dark lashes, and his expression was quizzical and tired. “Snow, do you really think I’m going to let you go back into that blaze? Go call the fire department if you’re so worried.”

           

“You’re a madman,” I mumbled—probably not the best thing to say to a suicidal person, but he seemed unconcerned that he was maybe half an hour away from losing his house. I did run inside and call the fire department, then I rushed back outside, located the hose, and sprayed it at the edges of the fire, to little effect. By then, the commotion had woken Penny, and she was there shouting orders to the firemen when they arrived.

           

Mr. Pitch was still sitting on the stairs, dazed. When it was obvious that I couldn’t do anything to help with the fire, I sat down with him and gingerly put my hand on his back, hoping to be comforting. I searched for words. I wasn’t sure if anything I could say would mean anything to him. “It’ll be all right, whatever it is,” I said after a long while. “Everything’s always all right in the end. I speak from experience.”

           

The words seemed inadequate to me, but he said, “I suppose you do.”

           

The sun was coming up. I wondered if I could get in an hour or two more of sleep before Mordelia woke up. Then Mr. Pitch said, out of the blue, “Simon, have you ever been in love?”

           

 _He called me Simon_ , I thought. “I don’t think so, sir.”

           

He snorted. It was possibly a laugh. I turned away to pout a little. _Of course_ someone like me wouldn’t experience love, and someone like him would. “All right, imagine you were, or thought you were,” he said. “And imagine you had a secret. A terrible one. If the person you loved knew it, they could never feel the same way about you. Would you be justified in keeping the secret?”

           

I had no idea what to say. This was so not what I’d expected. “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I think lying is generally a bad thing, but I guess occasionally it can help people.”

           

“Do you think keeping the terrible secret from the person you love could justify a little ruthlessness?”

           

I looked at him sideways. “Not really.”

           

He sighed. “Simon Snow. You’re honest to a fault, I suppose?”

           

I shrugged. “Sometimes in the care homes, I’d have to lie to avoid getting hurt.”

           

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” he said. “Lying to avoid getting hurt.”

           

I didn’t know what else to say. He turned his whole body to face me head-on. “You saved me,” he said, like he’d just remembered.

           

“You saved yourself,” I said, because I really didn’t think any of my words had convinced him.

           

“No—you came for me. If you hadn’t, I’d be—”

           

Neither of us said _dead_.

           

His face was calm, but his grey eyes were still in turmoil. I was sort of mesmerised by them. “If there’s ever anything you need to talk about, I’m happy to listen,” I said.

           

“I don’t think I’d do it again,” he said seriously. “But thank you. I knew the first time I saw you that you’d be good for me.”

           

I was speechless. And all the more so when he leaned in closer. Almost nose-to-nose.

           

“My lucky star,” he said softly.

           

I had some very strong, sudden, and alarming urges with him that close to me. I pulled back quickly. “I think I’m going to go back to bed, if you don’t need anything else right now.”

           

“You’re going? Just like that?” he said. “Simon, you saved my life! Aren’t you going to say anything?”

           

“It’s nothing,” I said, then thought the better of it. “I mean, you don’t owe me. I’m glad I could help.” He touched my hand for just a second before I stood and retreated. “I’m just tired.”

           

I saw a flash of disappointment on his face, but he hid it quickly. Looking perfectly neutral, he said, “Of course. Get some rest.”

           

“Good night, sir,” I said, though it wasn’t night anymore.

           

Back inside, I felt excited and unsettled all at once. I lay down in bed and let myself dream.

 

           

I spent the day in the schoolroom with Mordelia, as always. She was especially hyper that day, begging me to let her go out and see the burned trees. Eventually, I gave in, mostly because I hoped to run into Mr. Pitch. I wanted to see if he was okay.

           

She and I walked through the trees until she got bored with them. “I wish I’d seen the fire,” she said.

           

“No, you don’t,” I said. “It was really scary.”

           

She thrust her chin up. _“I_ wouldn’t have been scared.”

           

We wandered back up to the house and ran into Penny, who was coming out to get the post. When Mordelia was distracted, I asked her if Mr. Pitch had seemed all right today. I wasn’t sure if Penny knew what he’d been trying to do last night. I suspected not when she shrugged and said, “He seemed fine this morning.”

           

I gave in to the possibility of embarrassing myself when I said, “I’d like to talk to him about some stuff from last night.”

           

Penny frowned. “Don’t you have his phone number? You ought to in case you two ever need to discuss Mordelia when he’s away.”

           

I was confused. “Isn’t he here?”

           

“No—didn’t you know? He’s gone to visit his cousin for a week or so.”

           

No one had told me that. Was I going to have to wait a whole week to talk to him about last night? I didn’t think I’d be brave enough to call him. Not about that, anyway.

           

She gave me his phone number, and I tucked it away. I resigned myself to waiting.

           

           

The house felt instantly less alive without Mr. Pitch in it. I’d sort of forgotten what it had been like before he arrived.

           

I thought about him a lot more than I wanted to. I worried about him. What if he tried to hurt himself while he was away, while I wasn’t there to help?

           

I also thought a lot more than I wanted to about the strange things he’d said to me after the fire. He was in love with someone, apparently. He had a secret. And I was his lucky star…

           

About four days after he’d left, I found Penny in a tizzy mid-day. She looked relieved to see me. “Simon! Thank goodness! I have exactly two days to get this house ready for visitors.”

           

I blinked at her. Was the house not ready? It was practically a museum. And— “Who’s visiting?” _I won’t get my hopes up_ , I thought. It wouldn’t be Mr. Pitch. People don’t visit their own houses.

           

“Baz called this morning to say he’s bringing a group of people to stay for the weekend.”

           

I felt a funny surge of energy flow through me.

           

“I’ve got to get someone in here to clean, and I’ve got to call Mrs. Pritchard and see if she’ll cook for us for a few days, and we’ve got to make the beds in all the guest rooms—”

           

“I can do that,” I said.

           

“Oh, would you? That’d be such a big help, Simon.”

           

A few minutes later I was dragging a basket full of crisp, white sheets around the house and struggling to make vast beds on my own. For the rest of the day, I kept reporting back to Penny, and she kept finding more things for me to do. That night, we collapsed in the lounge together, exhausted. We ordered pizza, and she, Mordelia, and I watched Mulan and all sang along to “I’ll Make A Man Out of You.” I went to bed wishing every night could be like that.

           

Two days later, a stream of cars began arriving early in the afternoon. Mordelia and I watched from the schoolroom window. Neither of us could focus on studying. It seemed to be mostly young people coming inside, but I saw Ebb from next door. Mordelia was pleased when she recognised somebody called Fiona out the window, and I had to stop her from running downstairs immediately. I wasn’t sure if we were wanted.

           

 

Later that day, though, Penny came upstairs and said that we should join the party after dinner. Mordelia was beside herself with excitement, but I felt intimidated. I wouldn’t fit in with people from Mr. Pitch’s world. Wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated.

           

“I might just stay up here,” I told Penny.

           

“No you won’t,” she said, grinning. “Baz specifically said he wanted you to come down.”

           

She left me overwhelmed with anxiety but smiling a bit because _Baz asked for me_.

           

Mordelia and I ate mac n’ cheese in the schoolroom, then we both changed into nicer clothes, per Penny’s instructions. Mordelia ran—and I crept—downstairs to where everyone was gathered in the lounge. No one seemed to notice me come in, because everyone’s attention shifted to Mordelia immediately. She made the rounds, everyone asking her about school and such. She was undeniably the life of the party.       

           

I sat down in a corner where I hoped to be unnoticed, but Penny sought me out, and then Ebb. She was there with Nicodemus, who I hadn’t realised was her brother, and a couple of his friends. Mr. Pitch was on the other side of the room talking to people I didn’t know, and he didn’t glance my way once. After a while, though, Penny dragged me up and around the room to introduce me to people. It turned out that Fiona was Mr. Pitch’s aunt. She looked every bit as aristocratic and dangerous as he did. She smirked at me and said, “You’re the tutor? I can see why he keeps you around.” She made me sit with her and talk about music, then she mocked me every time I didn’t know what band she was talking about. I couldn’t decide if I liked her or not.

           

I met Mr. Pitch’s cousin Dev as well. He sneered when I mentioned where I’d been to uni and mocked my job a bit. “Nothing better to do than teach one little girl in the middle of nowhere?”

           

“Hampshire’s hardly the middle of nowhere,” I said. I couldn’t really think of anything better to say.

           

“Couldn’t at least get a primary school gig?”

           

I pressed my lips shut, but I felt my anger building, like it used to when I was in care homes and ended up in fights with kids who talked the wrong way about my parents.

           

Penny jumped into save me, anyway. “We’re lucky to have Simon. Mordelia’s never had a better teacher. They suit each other perfectly. Don’t you think?” she asked me. I nodded gratefully.

           

At that point, Mr. Pitch was in a corner standing very close to a pretty girl, talking to her softly, and she was looking up at him like she’d never seen anything quite so lovely. Probably the way I looked at him after the fire. She laughed a little too loud at everything he said. I forced myself not to watch them too much. A few minutes later, though, they joined the rest of us, and the girl said, “I asked Baz to play for us, and he’s graciously agreed.” She was hanging off his arm and beaming at him, and he graced her with a small smile.

           

“I’ll just go get my violin,” he said.

           

As he left the room, he finally, finally looked at me. We made the briefest eye contact before he was gone.

           

When he came back, he stood in the middle of the room, and we all gathered around him.

           

“Play something romantic!” said the girl, and he flashed her a dazzling smile.

           

I knew that he played violin—I’d heard melodies drifting out of the library sometimes since he’d been home—but I’d never seen him play. I expected him to launch into some classic waltz, but to my surprise, he started playing an old love song that I actually recognised, “At Last.” I had a distant memory of someone playing that song for me when I was little. My mother? Grandmother? I wasn’t sure, but I was glad I’d remembered it.

           

Baz—Mr. Pitch—was gorgeous when he played. He closed his eyes, and his whole body moved with the music. He looked ethereal, and I knew someone like me could never touch him. Everybody else was as enthralled as I was, and no matter what he’d said to me sitting too close together after a near-death experience, he would end up with someone like his snobby friends or the pretty girl he was playing for.

           

I was surprised by how hard that thought hit me. Mr. Pitch was playing the last few notes of the song, and I thought, _I want him. I want him._ I fought the urge flee the room, run and hide until I thought I could put it out of my mind.

           

Because I had no chance.

           

He started to play something else, a classical piece. I let my mind wander, because focusing on him as he played was too much. I thought about what I would do for the rest of the weekend. I mentally reviewed my lesson plans for next week.

           

He played another couple of songs, then set his violin down and said, “That’s enough for tonight.”

           

“Will you play again tomorrow?” asked the girl, starry-eyed.

           

“Anything for you,” he said.

           

Everyone separated back into their individual conversations, and I took that moment to slip out. I’d had enough for one night, and surely I’d made enough of an appearance to satisfy everyone.

           

But I’d only made it two steps down the hall when I heard an unmistakable voice behind me. “Going so soon, Snow?”

           

I turned slowly, reluctantly. “Hello, sir,” I said.

           

He was leaning against the wall, smiling at me. “Hi. You haven’t said a word to me all night.”

           

I shrugged. “You were busy.”

           

“Not really.” His expression changed, and it looked like he was trying to read me. I hoped I looked more composed than I felt. “Are you all right?” he asked.

           

“Fine.”

           

“You don’t look well. Are you sleeping enough?”

           

I took the chance to escape. “Not really. Actually I was just going to bed.”

           

He ignored that and came closer. “You look unhappy too.”

           

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

           

“You can tell me,” he said softly. I couldn’t bear that tone of voice. So gentle. No one was ever so gentle with me. I glanced up at him, and it was obvious that he could tell I was about to cry.

           

“I’m going to bed,” I said, as firmly as I could.

           

“All right.” He sounded disappointed. “Goodnight, then, my—”

           

He turned, and I turned, and walked away.

 

 

I woke up around 1 a.m. to a blood-curdling scream. I sat bolt upright and blinked dazedly. The house had gone silent, and I wondered if I’d dreamed it. But no. It came again—long, loud, piercing.

           

I jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway.

           

Penny and Dev were already there. “What’s going on?” I asked.

           

“I don’t know,” said Penny. “But it came from this way.” We ran to another wing, where more guests were peeking out of their rooms, looking unsettled.

           

“Where’s Mr. Pitch?” I asked, but Penny wasn’t listening to me, and anyway, he appeared a moment later, coming out of the door that led to the third floor.

           

“Nothing to worry about,” he told everyone. “Mordelia had a nightmare. Everyone, go back to bed.” They started to disperse.

           

I was perfectly well aware that Mordelia’s room was not on the third floor.

           

Mr. Pitch made a beeline for Penny and whispered something in her ear. I turned to go back to my room, but then he grabbed me by the shoulder. “Snow, will you make sure Mordelia’s all right, and then come upstairs?”

           

I was confused, but I said yes. I went to Mordelia’s room, and she was sleeping soundly, having apparently not heard the screaming at all. So obviously, it hadn’t come from her.

           

I went upstairs. Mr. Pitch was waiting for me. “Does blood bother you?” he asked.

           

“No,” I said. I’d seen enough of it in my life. But I frowned at him, wanting an explanation.

           

He took me into one of the bedrooms. Nicodemus was there, hovering over a bed where Ebb lay prostrate, bleeding from her neck.

           

I gasped.

           

“All right?” Baz asked.

           

“Is _she?_ ” She was clearly unconscious.

           

“I think she will be,” he said. “Penny’s gone to get a doctor. Will you sit with her and just press this—” he handed me a couple of clean rags— “to her neck to try to stop the bleeding? Nico and I need to have a little discussion.”

           

Nico looked at me and said, “I told you, didn’t I?”

           

Just as they left the room, I heard Baz say darkly, “You better not have told him anything.”

           

 I went to Ebb and removed the blood-soaked rag Nico had been using. I wiped up some of the excess blood, and when I could see her neck more clearly, there were two ragged puncture wounds. She’d been bitten—by _what?_

           

I pressed one of the clean rags firmly over the wounds and held it. Then I waited. I think it was only about 30 or 40 minutes, but it felt like hours. Ebb was still unconscious, breathing unevenly. I sang to her a little, like I’d done the night Mordelia couldn’t sleep, but I wasn’t sure Ebb could even hear me. There was clearly no longer anyone in the hall outside. Had they abandoned me?

           

Eventually, Penny and Mr. Pitch came in with a doctor, and I moved out of their way, but I didn’t leave right away. Mr. Pitch came over and put one hand on my shoulder, and I fought the urge to shove him off. “Thank you, Simon. I really appreciate it,” he said.

           

“’Sall right,” I said.

           

“You can go back to bed.”

           

I looked back at Ebb. “Will she be okay?”

           

He looked worried—older and drawn—but he said, “I think so.”

 

           

It was technically already Saturday, so I slept late. When I got up, I found Penny and Mordelia alone in the kitchen, eating lunch. The others had all gone out horseback riding, apparently. I didn’t even know Mr. Pitch had horses. There was so much I didn’t know about the estate, even after seven months of living there.

           

I asked after Ebb. Penny said she’d gone home to recover.

           

“Not to the hospital?” It hadn’t occurred to me when I was scared and sleep-deprived the night before, but why hadn’t we taken her to the hospital right away? Why wait so long for a doctor to arrive?

           

“She didn’t need the hospital,” said Penny a bit dismissively. “She just needs to rest and let her wounds heal.”

           

I didn’t think that made much sense, but I just nodded. “Maybe I’ll go visit her in a day or two.”

           

Penny looked like she might disapprove of that idea, but she said, “That’s nice of you.”

           

I shrugged. “She’s always been kind to me.”

           

Mr. Pitch and his guests came back an hour or so later. I had shut myself up in the schoolroom because I didn’t feel like seeing them. As afternoon faded into evening, Penny and Mordelia found me. “What have you been doing up here all afternoon?” Penny asked.

           

Not much of anything. Just feeling sorry for myself.

           

“You’ll come down for dinner, right?” she asked.

           

“With you two?”

           

“With everyone.”

           

I held back a groan. “I don’t really feel like it,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll miss me, anyway.”

           

“Pleeease, Simon?” said Mordelia, clinging to my arm. “I like you better.”

           

That made me smile. “Really? Better than all of them?” She nodded. “Better than your brother?” I asked.

           

“Well, no—”

           

“Better than your aunt?”

           

“She’s not my aunt, she’s Baz’s aunt. Anyway, you’re nicer,” she said.

           

So of course I agreed.

           

That night, there was no Ebb to keep me company, and Penny wasn’t sitting near me. I ended up talking mostly to the girl who’d flirted with Mr. Pitch the night before. Her name was Bianca. _Baz and Bianca_ , I thought _. So perfect together._ She seemed nice, and I felt bad for disliking her, but I couldn’t stop wondering what was going on between them and if she was the person he was talking about the night of the fire.

           

At the other end of the table, Mr. Pitch and Dev were loudly discussing plans to travel the continent. I thought that’s what Mr. Pitch had been doing before. The more I eavesdropped, the more it became obvious that he was planning to leave again imminently. Dev was talking about joining up with Niall in Palermo. “He’s rented out that house for three months,” he said. “We could make that our base. Travel anywhere from there.”

           

Mr. Pitch turned up his nose at that. “Palermo? Bit isolated, don’t you think?” And he said something about a house near Marseille that was “still in the family.”

           

I picked at my food and mentally laughed at myself for harbouring affections for someone who lived in a completely different world from me.

           

Bianca was pouting, too. “You aren’t really going away, are you?” she asked.

           

Mr. Pitch said, “Maybe you’ll have to come with us.”

           

He looked at me for just a second. I imagined my expression was incredulous and mildly disgusted. His went from cocky to slightly abashed. I looked away.

           

           

The guests left Sunday evening. By then, there’d been lots more talk of Mr. Pitch’s trip with Dev. It sounded like a sure thing.

           

I’d spent the whole day wondering about Ebb, and I thought of going to visit her, but it seemed a little too soon.

           

Fiona took Mordelia and Mr. Pitch into the village for dinner, and Penny left too. I was alone in the house.

           

I was restless and sad. I escaped outside and wandered around the grounds, kicking at the grass and pulling leaves off trees, then feeling sorry and apologising to them.

           

It was April now, and the days were getting longer. The sunset seemed to go on forever. Just at dusk, I heard someone come up behind me, and I _knew_ it was him. He had seen me. I couldn’t get away. I turned around reluctantly. He was just standing there watching me, one eyebrow raised, hands in his pockets. “Out for a ramble, Simon?” he asked.

           

“Yes, sir,” I mumbled. When had he gotten back?

           

“It’s just the right time,” he said. “The gloaming. The borderline between night and day.”

           

He began talking about the patch of wild violets he’d found beyond the garden the week before. “I’ll have to show them to you,” he said.

           

I didn’t say anything. I kept walking, and he followed, and although he’d seemed friendly at first, I could feel him turning frosty beside me. He hadn’t been frosty with me in ages, not since the first few weeks he was home, really. We were friends—even if he never wanted more, I had that, at least. So the waves of cool annoyance rolling off of him confused me. Was he just upset because I was being quiet?

           

It was that thought, I guess, that pushed me to say, “Are you really leaving again? With your cousin?”

           

“Looks like it,” he said.

           

“I wish you wouldn’t,” I blurted. Then I was embarrassed, and it was especially stupid since I’d actually been thinking of Mordelia and not myself. I quickly added, “Your sister misses you so much when you go away. It isn’t fair of you, Mr. Pitch, really, to leave her for so long at a time.”

           

“She has Penny,” he said.

           

“It’s not the same.”

           

“Maybe I should take her with me,” he said, and his tone was so petulant that I knew he was just trying to irk me, so I played along.

           

“Maybe you should.”

           

“What would you do then, Snow? If your pupil was gone?” He stopped walking and turned to me.

           

I pulled at my hoodie strings nervously. “Find a new job, I guess.”

           

“Where?”

           

“Anywhere.”

           

“You could go abroad, too,” he said. “Have an adventure, since you’re always talking about travelling.”

           

His tone had turned nicer, but I was suddenly upset. If I went away, would I ever even see him again? Even if he was just teasing about taking Mordelia away, _he_ was definitely going to leave, and I wouldn’t see him for months. What was worse—staying here and pining for him, or going away and being separated forever?

           

 _He isn’t yours to lose either way,_ I told myself.

           

He cut into my thoughts. “Snow. What’s wrong?”

           

“Nothing.” I tried to school my expression.

           

“Not so keen to leave?” he asked in a smug, knowing way that I hated.

           

“I’d miss Mordelia and Penny,” I said. _Not you._

“Not me?” He sat down abruptly on a bench at the edge of the garden, and I stood looking at him. He closed his eyes, so I gave in and let myself admire him for a moment—his long neck, his strong jaw, his silky dark hair, his madly pale skin.

           

“I wouldn’t miss you either, Snow,” he said. “I’d only miss the part of my heart that’s been inexplicably connected to yours since we met.”

           

I was speechless. _What?_

He leaned back against a tree trunk and sighed. “You wouldn’t think about me once I’d gone.”

           

I tried to collect my racing thoughts, which were mostly focused on _Baz talking about his heart, oh my god._ “I wouldn’t think about you,” I repeated stupidly.

           

“No.”

           

“Are you mad?” I gaped at him.

           

He glared back. “Excuse me?”

           

“Okay, so we’re doing this.” I doubled down. “We’re talking about our feelings now, is that it? I think about you all the time! Even if I never saw you again, I’d still think about you all the time.”

           

This earned me the smallest smile, which just annoyed me more.

           

“It’s like you think there’s nothing at all in my head! I may not be as rich and educated as you and your snobby friends, but I think and feel just as much as you do!”       

           

This clearly startled him. “Snow, I never—”

           

“Don’t you start!” I realized then that I’d forgotten what I meant to say next, so we were left there staring at each other, and I knew my lip was trembling, and I was losing any upper hand I’d had, because he could probably read everything on my face.

           

Quietly, he said, “Maybe you’d rather stay.”

           

“I wouldn’t,” I said, just to be contrary. “I can do whatever I want.”

           

“So you can.” He tilted his head, considering me. “What an odd bird you are, Snow.”

           

“I’m not a bird!” I said nonsensically.

           

“I thought you wanted to stay.”

           

“I do!” I was being ridiculous. “I have friends here. Here I feel hopeful, and I actually have time to think about more than just surviving another day. But I’m not going to stay if you and Mordelia are both gone. I’m not just going to sit around and wait for you to come back.”

           

He stood and stepped closer to me, hesitantly. “If you stayed, I’d stay,” he said.

           

“What for?” I asked, crossing my arms.

           

“To be with you,” he said.

           

 _Breathe,_ I reminded myself, because I’d forgotten for a second.

           

“Surely you’ve got better places to be,” I said, my voice quite small.

           

“I haven’t,” he said. “I actually just want to be with you all the time.”

           

“Are you teasing?”

           

“Not in the least,” he said—and his voice and face were dead serious.

           

“Prove it,” I said, like a 12-year-old.

           

And he did. He kissed me.

           

By the time he pulled away, I was breathless again. “Mr. Pitch? What? What’s happening?”

           

Then he was laughing. “For god’s sake, call me Baz.”

           

“Did we just--?”

           

“Yes, we did.”

           

We were standing close together with our hands clasped between us, and all I could think of to say was, “Why me?”

           

“Because you’re the only person who can make me happy, Simon. You’re the only person who _has.”_

           

“Oh,” I said, and my voice was very small, which made him smile.

 

           

It took us a while to make it inside; we kept pausing to kiss again. Penny caught us just after we’d said goodnight—we _said_ it, but he didn’t let me go right away. We made out in the hallway between our two rooms for a few more minutes, until we heard her laughing. We both looked up guiltily, but she just laughed again and kept walking down another hallway towards her room.

           

The next morning over breakfast, she grinned at me and said, “I knew it!”

           

“What did you know?” I was mildly embarrassed at the thought that my crush had been obvious.

           

“That he liked you.”

           

“You knew that? I didn’t even know that until last night.”

           

She shrugged and took a bite of her muffin. “I’ve known Baz since we were kids,” she said with her mouth full. “I can tell. He was mooning all over the place. Fiona noticed, too, this weekend.”

           

“Could you tell I liked him?” I asked.

           

She thought about it for a minute. “I haven’t known you very long, but I thought you seemed happier around him.”

           

I smiled just thinking about it. “I am.”

           

Later in the morning, Baz found me upstairs with Mordelia and asked if he could talk to me alone for a minute. He asked in such a hesitant, stilted way that I was immediately nervous. I left the schoolroom thinking, _he’s going to say last night was a mistake._

           

In the hallway, he stuck his hands in his pockets and asked, “How did you sleep?”

           

“All right,” I said cautiously. “You?”

           

He smiled a little. “I couldn’t. Too excited.”

           

Then I reckoned everything was all right. I smiled back. “It was a pretty exciting night.”

           

We stood there looking at each other for a minute like the two idiots we were, then I launched myself at him and kissed him good morning.

           

“Hi, love,” he whispered.

           

“Hi, Baz,” I said.

           

“I have a bunch of stupid paperwork to do this morning,” he told me. “Come keep me company?”

           

I laughed at him. “I’m working. You’re paying me to teach your sister, remember?”

           

He pouted a bit, so I shoved him off and went back to the schoolroom. Better to keep him wanting more.

           

That night, though, he insisted on taking me out to dinner. We went all the way to Winchester to an incredibly posh restaurant where I felt out of place in business casual and choked on my drink when I saw the prices. He didn’t eat much. “I’m not very hungry,” he said, and packed up most of his food to take away.

           

Extravagance became a pattern with him for the first few weeks of our relationship. He pampered me, buying me expensive things. A platinum watch, brand-name cologne, aged whisky, a new laptop, Beats headphones because my old earbuds were fraying. There were several more expensive dinners, some at home—he brought in a French chef to cook for us. It all culminated with him buying me a car, a Mercedes that I made him send back immediately. After that, I sat down with him and told him to stop. I didn’t want presents from him. I just wanted his time and affection. I just wanted to cuddle and talk.

           

“You can have all that _and_ presents,” he said.

           

“It feels weird,” I said. “I’ve never had fancy things. I’m afraid to break them, and I can’t stop obsessing over how much they cost.”

           

“Simon, I have plenty of money, and I want you to have nice things,” he said.

           

“Baz, you have to understand that I’ve never had anything. Growing up in those homes, I didn’t even have my own soap. Even in uni, I was barely scraping by, so I never bought myself anything nice—”

           

“Shouldn’t you have those things now?” he argued.

           

“It’s too much,” I said, in what I hoped was a definitive way. “Can you just tone it down a little? I really do appreciate it, but I don’t need these things.”

           

He toned it down. We went back to cooking for ourselves, and the only time he gave me any grief about it all was when I asked him to drive me somewhere because I still had no car.

           

           

About a week after the house party, I went to see Ebb. She looked a little pale, and her neck was still bandaged, but she was in a cheery mood and stuffed me with scones before I left. I had brought her a little goat figurine that Mordelia and I had found at an antique shop in the village, and Ebb cried over how much she liked it. “I’ll bring you more,” I promised.

           

           

Mordelia, of course, had noticed the changes between Baz and me. I wasn’t sure if he’d said anything to her about it, and I wasn’t sure he would want me to. Eventually, though, she confronted me about it. “I know you kiss Baz,” she said. “I saw it.” She said it in such an accusatory way that I froze and didn’t know what to say, but then she asked, “Are you boyfriends?” in a friendlier tone.

           

“I think so,” I said. “I hope so.”

           

She smiled and nodded to herself like _I thought so._

           

I made him talk to her about it after that. She came back to me with some strange story he’d told her about how he was going to take me to the moon to live with him. “He’s so weird,” she said, shaking her head like she thought it was incurable.

           

“He really is,” I agreed.

           

I liked his weirdness.

 

           

He kept trying to lure me away from the schoolroom during the week. I kept resisting. The result was that he claimed all my nights and weekends for himself. He’d pull me into the lounge or the library after dinner and lock us in so we’d be alone.

           

We kissed a lot. We cuddled on the sofa and talked about the future. He seemed to take it for granted that we were going to be together for a long time, and that was a relief. Even after a couple of weeks together—and only a few months of knowing each other—he felt indispensable to me.

           

“We’re going to have so many adventures,” he told me. “Where do you want to go first? Greece, maybe? We could rent a boat and sail around the islands.”

           

“Can you sail?” I asked.

           

“I’ll learn,” he said, and we both laughed.

           

We made a list of all the places we wanted to go, and it ended up being everywhere. I countered Greece with the Galapagos (“we could sail around _those_ islands”), and he said, “Let’s start somewhere less exotic. How about Madagascar?” Another day, he said, “All this travelling will definitively launch your photography career—if you let me buy you a nicer camera.” I didn’t say yes or no. But we did start planning for real after he pointed out that it was hardly fair to Mordelia to make her study all summer. We talked about going to his family’s house in the south of France. We started looking at dates and transportation. I pored over maps and guidebooks, making lists of everything I wanted to see while we were there. He laughed at me. “The whole point of going to Provence is to not do anything. You just sit in the sun and drink wine.”

           

“This is our first adventure, Baz,” I said. “It needs to be a good one.”

 

           

One night after dinner, I begged him to get out his violin and play something for me, and after that, it became a bit of a ritual. I never got tired of watching him. He knew how to play a lot of rock songs as well as classical pieces. Every time I actually recognised something, it excited me.

           

When he was too tired to play anymore, I’d go over to the old turntable in the corner of the room and flip through the record collection that he said had belonged to his mum. She had a lot of older, American music. My favourite records were Smokey Robinson and Frankie Valli, and I played them until we were both sick of them.

           

I was embarrassed the first time he caught me singing along. “My voice is terrible,” I said.

           

“I like hearing it,” he said, and kissed me to prove it. So after that, I sang as much and as loudly as I wanted and danced around the room to make him laugh. Sometimes we slow-danced, but sometimes I fast-danced, which involved a lot of hopping and head-banging, and on the best nights I could convince him to join me in that, too.

 

           

A few weeks into my relationship with Baz, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to sleep alone anymore. I had never really liked to. I wasn’t used to it, after so many years of sharing rooms with other boys. Even at uni, I always had roommates. I was used to listening to someone else’s breathing as I tried to fall asleep. I was always hit with strong waves of anxiety at night, and it was a relief to know that if any of the horrible things my mind came up with actually did happen, there’d be someone there to help me. Even after eight months at Pitch Manor, I still wished I had someone else in my room at night.

           

Baz had never invited me into his room or asked to come into mine, but that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t want to. So on a particularly anxious night, I convinced myself that it would be okay to go to him. I shuffled down the hall and knocked on his door softly. There was no response, so I slowly opened it and said his name.

           

“Simon?” he said sleepily, sounding confused.

           

“It’s me,” I said. “Can I come in?”

           

“Of course.” I heard him sit up in bed. I made my way through the dark room, trying not to hit anything. Baz’s bed was tall, and it took me a minute to climb into it. As soon as I did, his arms were around me. “All right?” he asked.

           

“Just got a bit lonely,” I said. I explained, haltingly, about not liking to sleep by myself.

           

“You can sleep here whenever you want,” he said. He lay back down and pulled me down with him.

           

“Every night, then?” I asked unabashedly.

           

“Mm-hmm. I kept wanting to ask you to stay with me at night, but I didn’t want you to take it the wrong way. Because, you know, we don’t have to do anything. I mean, we can if you want, but I’m not expecting it—”

           

He was so nervous that it made me laugh. I loved seeing him lose his composure, because that was so rare. “I understand,” I said. “And I’d like to _do_ things soon. Not tonight, though.”

           

He hummed in agreement, so I snuggled into him. In only a few minutes, I was drifting off. Just before I fell asleep, I said, “It’s so hot in here. How can you stand to have this many blankets?” I heard him laugh.

 

           

On the weekends we had excursions. Some short, some long. He’d drive me around the countryside, and I would roll my window down because it was finally getting warmer, and we’d listen to music. Sometimes we’d stop and explore whatever small town we had come across. Sometimes we packed food and looked for parks to have a picnic. Half the time I’d fall asleep in the grass after eating too much. I’d wake up slightly sunburned, and Baz would be gazing at me or playing with my hair or sometimes curled around me, also asleep.

           

One day, we came across a small, abandoned church on one of our drives. We were curious and decided to go inside. I ended up regretting that, because it was decidedly creepy. The air was heavy and musty; everything smelled like mould. The floor was rotting, and you could see that the walls were folding in on themselves. What bothered me most was the darkness—the windows were too dirty to let in much light.

           

We were about to make a hasty retreat when I noticed something shiny near the pulpit. On the dusty floor, near a disintegrating hymnal, was a silver cross. It looked far too nice to be there. “Baz, look at this!” I said. He came over, and I handed him the cross. He winced and dropped it, shaking his hand like he’d been burned. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

           

“Ah, nothing. It just slipped.”

           

We left quickly, and I forgot all about it.

 

           

Right around our two-month anniversary, Baz had to go away for a week. It was something for work—I still didn’t understand exactly what he did, but apparently he was expected to go to some kind of conference.

           

I moped quite a bit while he was gone. I was used to spending every day with him, and I liked it that way. It was June, and we’d agreed to give Mordelia her summer off from lessons, so I was suddenly without any work, and I went over and begged Ebb to let me help out with her farm just to have something to do.

           

Something about Baz being away made me anxious, like maybe while he was off cavorting with people more like him, he’d realise what a mismatched couple we were and decide to break up with me. But then I’d think that, to me, we didn’t actually seem mismatched at all. Our lives were vastly different, and his personality wasn’t much like mine either, but I’d begun to understand that Baz was as lonely as I was, and that he’d been looking for a long time for some kind of tether, something to keep him from drifting aimlessly through life. And me, I’d been looking for something that would make the future seem brighter. If I got to spend my life with Baz, that future would be blinding.

           

The night he came back, I sat out on the front steps waiting for him. I saw that sleek, dark car of his coming up the drive, and my stomach flipped, and my heart beat faster, and I forced myself not to run to him immediately.

           

He waved to me as he pulled up, and I thought I could see him smiling. I watched him pull into the garage, and only then did I get up and go to him. He stepped out of the car and removed his sunglasses in one smooth, graceful motion, and I thought, _I have the coolest boyfriend. And the fittest._

           

Now, he was definitely smiling. “Were you waiting for me?” he asked. “Miss me a bit?”

           

I kissed that cocky smile off his face. His arms went around my waist to pull me in closer. We went inside and straight up to his room, and neither of us said much for a while, too busy doing other things.

           

But finally, as we lay face-to-face and he ran fingers through my hair, I said, “Sometimes I can’t believe this is real.”

           

He closed his eyes. “Me neither.”

 

           

If I’d thought about it, I might have expected Baz’s midnight wanderings to lessen when I was sleeping in his bed. But I was a light sleeper, so I knew that he still got up and went out most nights. He always put his shoes on. Sometimes he even took off his pyjamas and re-dressed. He was usually back within an hour. Sometimes only 30 minutes. Every time it happened, I resisted getting up and following him, but I was worried. I thought about the night of the fire and wondered if he was still depressed, despite seeming happy when he was with me.

           

One night, we had a bit of a row. He’d been talking about hiring a new tutor for Mordelia. At first, I’d said I wanted to keep teaching her. He’d said it was too weird for me to be both his employee and his boyfriend. I’d said, “You don’t have to keep paying me,” and then he’d yelled a little about how he wouldn’t let me work for free. I’d backed down a bit, but then I’d told him something I’d been thinking about for a long time—that she’d be better off going to school, if we could find one that could accommodate her needs. “She needs to be with other children,” I said. “She doesn’t have any friends her own age.”

           

“You know there isn’t any school close by that would be right for her,” he’d said, “and I’m not going to ship her off to boarding school.”

           

“We could find something,” I’d argued, and then he’d sneered and said something about that “irrepressible Simon Snow optimism,” and I’d told him not to say my name if he was going to use it as an insult.

           

That was pretty much the end of it—we didn’t resolve anything—and we went to bed still upset with each other. He got back up half an hour later and stomped outside, and by then I was feeling bad about our fight, so I decided to finally get up and see where he went every night and apologise to him while I was at it.

           

I was too far behind to be able to properly follow him, but I knew from my previous spying that he normally went straight into the field in front of the house. I went that way and wandered around for a few minutes until I reached the tree line by the road into town. He wasn’t there, so I turned and went back towards the wooded area where the fire had occurred. After a few more minutes of walking, I wondered if I’d missed him and he’d already gone back to the house.

           

But then I saw a bit of movement in between two trees, and I followed it. Baz was sitting on the ground, and his face was buried in something. I couldn’t tell what it was until I stepped closer, and he heard me and looked up.

           

It was a bird. It was dead, limp in his hands. There was blood on his chin, and his mouth was hanging open, and I could see two long, sharp, bloodied fangs.

           

I stood there speechless for a moment, not able to really process what I was seeing. He’d killed a bird. He’d been drinking its blood. He had fangs.

           

He was a vampire.

           

He must have seen the shock and horror on my face, because he stood and dropped the bird. “Simon,” he said, reaching for me. But there was blood on his hands, too. I turned and ran.

           

I thought of going back to the house, but he’d follow me there.

           

I made for the road again and headed towards the village. For a while, I kept running, but eventually it was clear that no one was following me, so I stopped. It wasn’t until I walked into town that I fully comprehended my situation. It was the middle of the night. No one was awake. There was no shop or restaurant I could go into for help—and no one would believe me anyway. Besides which, I was still in my pyjamas.

           

I stood on the high street for a few minutes wondering what to do. After a while, I decided I had no option but to go back to the house. I’d been safe there up until now. Surely I still would be.

           

It took me the better part of an hour to walk home. I wasn’t exactly eager to get there. As I walked, I thought about all the evidence that had been building up, things I’d ignored. The dead rats, Ebb’s wound, Nico’s warning, Baz’s “terrible secret.” Was I a complete idiot for not figuring it out?

           

Maybe not. How was I supposed to know that vampires were real? I’d have felt crazy if the thought had crossed my mind.

           

When I got back to the house and went inside, I heard voices from the lounge. The cautious part of my brain told me to go straight to my room—mine, not Baz’s. But the curious part directed me towards the voices.

           

I heard Penny say, “Honestly, Baz, I don’t know who else to call in the middle of the night.”

           

He said something emphatic and angry that ended with “have to do _something._ ”

           

I pushed the door open to see Penny lying on the sofa and Baz leaning over her looking furious. His face was clean, and I couldn’t see his fangs, but I was hit with the overwhelming knowledge that _he was going to bite Penny_.

           

I rushed at them and pushed him away. “Don’t you dare touch her!”

           

He looked at me, and his expression was absolutely shattered.

           

Penny sprang up from the sofa and grabbed my arm, “Simon, he wasn’t going to,” she said. “He would never.”

           

She was looking at me with pity, and I realised that she knew. She’d always known. “You didn’t tell me,” I said. I glanced at him. “You both lied to me.”

           

“Simon, we had our reasons,” she said.

           

“Yeah—that you knew I wouldn’t stay if you told me.”

           

Penny said nothing. Baz said, “You won’t stay?”

           

It was a much more loaded question than it would’ve been a couple of months earlier, and I didn’t have an answer to it. I bolted upstairs.

           

I went to my room and locked the door. I heard someone come upstairs and pause in the hallway, but they didn’t knock or say anything.

           

I slumped on my bed. I reviewed the facts. Baz was a vampire, or something like that. He had been as long as I’d known him. I was in love with a vampire!

           

Penny knew. Penny hadn’t told me.

           

Did Mordelia know? Was she safe with him? Were any of us? Could he control it, or did he go into some kind of fugue state like Lupin in Harry Potter?

           

I tried to think about vampire movies I had seen. Were they responsible for their actions? On one hand, the vampires in Twilight seemed to have a choice about whether to be good or evil. On the other hand, in Dracula, they were automatically evil, even if they’d been good people before.

           

Then it occurred me that I was comparing my actual, real life to Twilight and Dracula, and I stopped.

           

I thought about Ebb. He could have killed her. Maybe he _had_ killed someone before, someone else.

           

That was a deal-breaker. Obviously. I adored him, but I couldn’t be okay with this, and I couldn’t feel safe with him, knowing the truth. I couldn’t trust him.

           

I hated to think of leaving any of them—Baz, Penny, Mordelia. They’d become my family. They were all I had in the world. But I couldn’t stay.

           

I flipped over on my bed and looked at the clock. It was 3 a.m. I would leave in the morning, I decided.

           

In the meantime, I’d go wash up a bit, then try to get some sleep if possible. I stood and went to the door. When I opened it, there was Baz, sitting on the floor. He looked up at me, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He’d been crying. “Simon,” he croaked.

           

“How long have you been sitting out here?” I asked.

           

“As long as you’ve been in there,” he said. He stood up, and then we were face-to-face. “Are you all right?”

           

I crossed my arms and avoided his gaze. “Not really.”

           

“I wouldn’t expect you to be.” His voice was soft. “Will you come back to my room? We can talk about it.”

           

I shook my head stubbornly. “I want to stay in my room.”

           

“Will you let me come in?”

           

“I want to wash my face,” I said. “And get some water.”

           

“Go wash your face,” he said gently. “I’ll get water and come back.”

           

“Okay,” I said.

           

“You won’t shut me out?”

           

“No.” Not yet, anyway.

           

I went to the toilet and cleaned up, and when I came back to my room, Baz was there with a glass of water. I sat on the bed and drank, and my whole body shuddered with exhaustion. Baz dragged a chair over and sat in front of me, rubbing my arm and looking at me with the most worried expression. I could tell he wanted to know what I was thinking. I wasn’t ready to tell him.

           

After some time passed, he said, “This must seem like such a nightmare to you.” Then, when I didn’t say anything— “We didn’t tell you because we knew how overwhelming and incomprehensible it would be, but you’re safe here, Simon, I promise.”

           

I had nothing to say to that.

           

He sighed and went on. “I was bitten when I was a child. It made me what I am. The same monster who bit me also killed my mother.”

           

I realised then that no one ever talked about how his mother died.

           

“I’m so disgusted with what I am,” he said, barely audibly. Then, a bit louder, “I don’t blame you if you are, too. You know all those trips I’ve taken around the world? I was always just running from myself. I didn’t want to be me. Somehow, not being at home made it less painful. When I came back in January, I thought I’d stay a week or two and then leave again, but _you_ were here, and you made me want to stay.” He paused. “I guess it’s awful that I wouldn’t stay for my sister. But then, there’s part of me that wondered if I could end up being a danger to her. Not that I’d ever touch her, but something could go wrong, you know.”

           

He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “It’s just, since I met you, life isn’t so painful anymore. You’ve made it sunny and colourful again, and I don’t hate myself when I’m with you. It’s like I can see myself through your eyes, and I’m not so bad. I’m interesting. I’m… attractive. And that’s the other reason I didn’t want you to know the truth. I know it’s selfish, but I wanted you to like me.” He leaned in closer, trying to get me to look at him. I wouldn’t. His voice broke when he said, “Please tell me you don’t hate me now.”

           

“I don’t,” I said.

           

“What, then? Are you scared of me?”

           

Kind of. Not really. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t hurt me. But I didn’t want him to hurt anyone else, either.

           

“Simon, _please_. Please say something.” He was shaking.

           

“I don’t know what to say.” I was too tired and wrung-out. He was right, it did feel like a nightmare. This night couldn’t be real. I hadn’t seen him drinking blood. I hadn’t run all the way to town.

           

I had. I had.

           

“Say you’ll stay.”

           

“I don’t think I can,” I told him.

           

I finally looked up and saw him trying to compose his face, but he looked distraught. He managed to give me a small smile. “If you need to go away for a little while to think, I would understand.”

           

 _I need to go away forever,_ I thought. I could see myself if I stayed, trying to turn a blind eye to it, trying not to care what he did, but still caring a lot. I started to cry a bit. He pulled me into a hug, wiped my tears, kissed my face. I broke away.

           

When I’d stopped crying, I told him again, “I can’t stay. But think about what I said earlier, all right? I really think Mordelia would be better off at school than with a new tutor.”

           

Then _he_ burst into tears. I’d never seen Baz cry, not even the night of the fire. It made my stomach twist. It made my chest seize, like my heart was literally breaking.

           

“You’re really going? Simon, you don’t know how bleak my life was before. I could see years stretching out, empty and dark, this horrible thing that I am just following me everywhere. And it’ll be so much bleaker than that if you leave. I’ve been hopeful—you’ll take it away—”

           

I believed he really meant that, but I wasn’t going to be guilt-tripped into staying. I looked away again.

           

“God,” he said. “I’ve never seen you like this. Like you’ve just turned yourself off. You’ve made up your mind about me, and that’s it, that’s all there is. You’ve hidden whatever else you’re feeling—like you don’t even care.”

           

That made me angry. “I fucking care, Baz!” I said fiercely. And then I realised I’d done what he wanted. I’d shown emotion.

           

“Okay, okay,” he said, sounding calmer. I hated him a little at that moment. I hated myself for playing into his hand. “So let’s not make any huge decisions right now, yeah? It’s the middle of the night, and we’re both overwrought. We can talk about this again when we’ve slept.”

           

I just nodded.

           

“Will you come back to bed?” he asked softly. He meant his bed. I shook my head. He gave me a sad look but said, “All right, then, I’ll see you in the morning. It’ll be all right—won’t it?”

           

I nodded but didn’t meet his eye. I wasn’t as good at lying as Baz.

           

He kissed me on the cheek and told me goodnight. I watched him leave.

           

I didn’t go to sleep. I wrapped myself in my duvet and stared at the wall, miserable. The rest of the day would be more of the same, I knew. Him trying to convince me that everything was okay and that I should stay. It wasn’t, and I couldn’t.

           

After a while, I got up and started packing. It didn’t take long. I didn’t have much. I left all my gifts from Baz except the headphones. I thought about taking the laptop, but the paranoid side of me thought, _what if he could track it somehow?_

           

I opened my box of photographs. The stack on the top were all from Pitch Manor. Baz, Penny, Mordelia, me. The gardens, the goats. I couldn’t take them all. I’d waste my life away looking at them. So I just took my favourites. Mordelia in the schoolroom holding up _Holes_ , which we’d read together. Penny laughing in the kitchen as she cooked something. Baz in the sunlight, eyes glowing, smiling at me. I left all the others, even the old ones. Maybe he’d want them. Maybe he’d burn them.

           

I pulled one more out of the box, one of him and me together. It was a few days after our first kiss. We looked ridiculously happy. I turned it over and wrote, _I can’t stay. I’m sorry. Please be all right. Goodbye._

           

I thought about writing to the others, too. I knew I was a coward for leaving like this, without saying anything to them, but I had no words. They’d probably hate me forever, anyway.

           

I left the picture outside Baz’s door. I didn’t want him to see it until I was long gone. I lingered outside the door for a minute, though, wondering if he was sleeping or not. I almost knocked. I already missed him.

           

But I walked on. I took my backpack and suitcase downstairs. I left my keys on the table in the front hall. I went out the door and didn’t let myself look back.

           

I walked to the village for the second time that night.

           

I didn’t cry until I was on the bus to Petersfield.

 

           

Once there, I knocked about the small train station for a while, buying a bacon roll and feeling extremely sorry for myself. It wasn’t until I got on the train to London that I realised I didn’t have my phone. I’d definitely slipped it in my pocket that morning as I left. It must have fallen out somewhere. This brought on my second round of tears, and I hid in the train toilet for a few minutes to avoid the nosy stares I was getting. _What are you crying for, anyway?_ I asked myself. _It’s not like you wanted him to call_.

           

I had only one plan upon arriving in London: to visit a solicitor at an office near St. Paul’s. Two weeks before, I’d received a letter from him, a letter so perplexing that I’d put it aside and thought _I’ll deal with this later_. Later had become now. The letter suggested that a Lady Ruth Salisbury had bequeathed me something in her will. I was certain it had to be a mistake. There was no way I could be in any way connected to a Lady. There was some other Simon Snow somewhere in England who’d been supposed to receive that letter, and I needed to go clear things up.

           

On the other hand… I was suddenly homeless and jobless, so on the off chance that someone had left me something, I was in no place to turn it down.

           

I turned up to the solicitor’s right when they opened at 9 a.m. The receptionist gave me an odd look. Probably this solicitor didn’t usually meet with young men in trackies who looked like they hadn’t slept in days and were carrying luggage. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

           

“No, but I received a letter from Mr. Chilton recently about a will?” I handed her the letter, which she looked over with obvious scepticism.

           

“Just one moment,” she said.

           

She disappeared behind a door, apparently checking the letter’s authenticity with her boss. In a minute, she reappeared and said, “Mr. Chilton will see you. You can leave your… bags… here if you like.”

           

I said thank you, and she let me into his office.

           

Mr. Chilton was much happier to see me than his receptionist had been. “Mr. Snow! I’ve been hoping to hear from you. I was afraid I had the wrong address.”

           

“I think maybe you did,” I said. “I don’t know the person you wrote me about. Lady Salisbury.”

           

He looked down at a file in front of him. “You are Simon Snow, aren’t you? Son of Lucy Salisbury? Birth date June 21, 1997, birthplace Aberystwyth?”

           

I didn’t relish telling this stranger that I’d been dumped in a home with no identifying information but the name written on my arm. All I’d been able to tell the people there was that I was three and used to live with my father. Now I had no memory of him. I was pretty sure I hadn’t been born in Wales, though. “I grew up in care, sir,” I said. “I don’t know my birthdate or parents’ names.”

           

He shuffled through some papers then said, “It has to be you. Lady Salisbury has been looking for you for a number of years, but she unfortunately passed away before she was able to locate you. However, the documentation from her private investigator ended up with me, and we found your current address just a few weeks ago. She knew that you’d been put into the foster system. Anyway, I’d say the resemblance is uncanny.”

           

He handed me a photograph of a teenage girl with long blonde hair and an athletic build. She looked a little like Baby Spice. “Who’s this? Is this Lady Salisbury?” I asked.

           

“This is her daughter Lucy. Your mother.” He delivered this information gently, like he was expecting me to have a breakdown at the mere mention of a mother. Maybe I would have if I’d taken him seriously.

           

“I’m not sure about this,” I said. So he spent a few more minutes trying to convince me, showing me more family portraits, including one of my father, and I had to admit that he looked a little familiar. Then Mr. Chilton showed me some of the reports from my apparent grandmother’s private investigator. He had tracked me down through my university and then worked backwards, and sure enough, there was a list of every home I’d ever lived in, including the one where I was initially left on the English-Welsh border. I had never remembered where it was. “This _is_ me,” I said.

           

“Is this?” He handed me two more photos. One was of Lucy holding a new-born baby. The other was of a golden-haired toddler looking at the camera rather sceptically. It was time stamped from September 2000, and I figured they must have taken it at the home when I first arrived. While the baby was unidentifiable, the toddler wasn’t. It was definitely me. I’d never seen any pictures of myself before about age 13. I stared at it for a long time.

           

Mr. Chilton recognised my acceptance of the facts and started talking about the money my grandmother had left me. To me, it sounded like an enormous sum. It had been put in some kind of account for me. He talked about the legality of me claiming it. He said that even without a DNA test, my claim would probably hold up in court, “and anyway, there’s no one who might contest this except Lady Salisbury’s son, and based on my dealings with him, he seemed pretty happy to take his inheritance and run. Now for the paperwork—”

           

I interrupted him. “Her son? I have an uncle?”

           

He looked at me with pity. Poor orphan boy with no family. “Yes, you do,” he said. He pointed him out in one of the pictures.

           

“Do you have any contact information for him?” I asked. I thought he might say that he wasn’t allowed to give it to me, but the next thing I knew he was writing down a name and an address. Laurence Salisbury. He lived somewhere in Sheffield.

           

We talked for a few more minutes about the money, then he gave me his card and asked for my contact information. I had just lost my address and phone number earlier that day. All I could give him was an email address.

           

I left his office with a folder full of paperwork and copies of the family photographs. “I can’t give you the originals, unfortunately,” he said. “We’ll need them if anyone does contest the will.”

           

I stumbled into a café for something to eat and ended up sitting there for a very long time wondering what the hell to do next. Part of me wanted to hop on the next train to Hampshire and run straight back into Baz’s arms and beg for forgiveness.

           

I wondered what was happening at the house. It was after 10. They’d know by now that I was gone. Were they looking for me? People in town had probably seen me get on the bus…

           

Was Baz angry? Sad? Something else? Would Mordelia feel abandoned? Would Penny be disappointed in me?

           

I forced myself to stop thinking about them. I wasn’t going back.

           

Fortunately, this café was the kind of place where you could sit for a long time without anyone bothering you. I stayed long enough to formulate a plan. I remembered being on Camden High Street once with a friend from uni and stopping into a hostel because she knew someone who worked there, so I made my way to Camden and went looking for it. It wasn’t too hard to find. I booked a bed in a shared dorm for two nights. I put my bags in one of their lockers, then used their communal computer to look up places to buy a phone. I figured with the money from my grandmother, I could afford to buy something nicer, and it’d serve in place of a laptop for now.

           

I came back a couple of hours later with a smartphone and a new number, although I had no one to give it to besides Mr. Chilton. By then, it was late enough that I could go up to my room. I collected my bags and took them upstairs. I changed into my pyjamas and collapsed on the bed, though it was the middle of the afternoon. And then I slept. And slept. And slept.

           

           

I spent the next day wandering around London and crying some more.

           

The third day, I went to Sheffield.

           

I showed up on my uncle’s doorstep in the afternoon, heart pounding. If he didn’t want anything to do with me, then I truly had no one.

           

The address I’d been given was on the outskirts of town, a rather nice neighbourhood. It was the last in a line of row houses. I stood looking at it for a minute, then took a deep breath and rang the bell.        

           

I’d expected to be greeted by a middle-aged man who looked either a bit like me or a bit like Baby Spice. Instead, a pretty blonde girl opened the door, looked at me with some mix of confusion and annoyance and said, “Can I help you?”

           

I wondered if she was his daughter. My cousin. I mustered a smile and said, “Hello, I’m looking for Mr. Salisbury.”

           

“I think you have the wrong house,” she said.

           

I looked at the scrap of paper Mr. Chilton had given me. It was definitely the right address. I held it out to her. “I’m sorry, this is supposed to be where my uncle lives. Laurence Salisbury?”

           

She squinted at the paper and said, “Oh, I’d forgotten! He lived here before me. I still get post for him sometimes.”

           

My heart sank. “Do you know where he moved to?” I asked.

           

She shook her head. “I never met him. Sorry.”

           

I didn’t know what to say. After a long pause, the girl said goodbye and shut the door in my face.

           

I stumbled back down the street in a daze. I found a Costa and got a coffee just so I could sit and use their wifi for a bit. I found a phone directory website and called every Salisbury listed in the greater Sheffield area. Those who answered their phones all said they didn’t know my uncle. I left messages for the others, but no one called me back.

           

I looked up hostels and copied down some of the addresses. I didn’t feel like walking to any of them yet. I went back outside and found a bench to collapse on.

           

I tried to remember Baz’s phone number. Or the one for the manor. _If I called right now, I could be back there tonight_ , I thought.

           

I didn’t.

           

I started crying again. I was properly disgusted with myself. I had never cried this much in my life, not even when I was little.

           

Before I could shut it off, someone had stopped in front of me and said, “Are you all right?”

           

I looked up. It was the girl from earlier, the one who lived in my uncle’s house. I just shook my head at her.

           

“I recognised you from before,” she said. “I hope you aren’t crying about your uncle.”

           

“I can’t find him,” I said. “I’ve been trying…”

           

“Was he expecting you?” she asked. I shook my head. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” I nodded. “Right. Well, then. I was just going to have some dinner. Why don’t you come with me and tell me about it?”

           

“Oh—that’s really nice of you—” I stammered, “but you don’t have to do that.”

           

She shrugged. “Have you got money?”

           

“Yeah.”

           

“You can buy your own, then. I just thought maybe you’d rather not be alone. Might like someone to talk to.”

           

It hit me again how truly alone I was, so I agreed to go with her.

           

As we walked, I took her in properly. She looked like she’d stepped out a magazine or something with her perfect, smooth hair and expensive-looking clothes.

           

She led me to a vegetarian restaurant down the road. It occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten in about nine hours, so I ordered five different things and hoovered them up with a speed that I think alarmed my companion.

           

Her name was Agatha. I went to tell her my name and ended up saying “Simon Salisbury” without really thinking about it. I wasn’t sure if Snow was my dad’s name or not, but if so, I’d rather take my mum’s. Besides which, if a certain someone happened to be looking for me, they wouldn’t be looking for a Salisbury.

           

She asked me what had happened. I didn’t really want to tell her the whole, sordid story—and I _couldn’t_ tell her that my ex-boyfriend was a vampire. So I put it like this: I’d been tutoring a little girl at home, and I lived in the house, but the situation had become dangerous, and I’d had to leave quickly for my own safety. I had decided to come and stay with my uncle, my only remaining family member, but I hadn’t been in touch with him beforehand to know that he had moved. Now, I couldn’t locate him.

           

She seemed sympathetic. She asked me if I had my uncle’s phone number. He was estranged from the family, I said. She accepted that. She said she’d ask her landlord if he had a forwarding address for Mr. Salisbury. I gave her my new phone number so she could let me know. She asked me if I had a place to stay, and I told her I’d been looking into hostels, which seemed to satisfy her. We parted ways with her promising to call me as soon as she’d heard anything.

           

That ended up being the next day. Apparently my uncle’s forwarding address was a post office box. Agatha met me at the post office where we unsuccessfully asked for his contact information.

           

We went for a bite to eat again. “What are you going to do?” she asked me.

           

“I don’t know,” I said. “I literally have nowhere to go.”

           

“You don’t have any other family?” I shook my head. “Friends?”

           

It was ridiculous—I was only a year out of uni, but I was already out of touch with most of my uni friends. The only one I still talked to was off au pairing in France. “Not anyone who’d take me in,” I said. We fell silent for a minute. “D’you think I could find a job around here? Literally any kind of job. I don’t care what.” I figured Sheffield was as good a place as any to be stuck by myself.

           

“I don’t see why not,” she said.

           

“I’ll have to find a place to live,” I said. I didn’t have my inheritance yet. My teaching money would run out fast if I was staying in the hostel and not working.

           

“I actually know someone who’s renting out a room in a house. There’d be a bunch of other flatmates, but you’d only share a kitchen and toilet.”

           

I wasn’t exactly in the position to be picky. “That sounds good,” I said.

           

Less than a week later, I had moved into the house and was cashiering at the nearest Tesco. I made friends with some of my flatmates, and it helped ease the loneliness. I also kept in touch with Agatha, and she and I got together maybe once a week.

           

One day, I idly downloaded the Facebook app on my new phone. It hadn’t occurred to me to do it before. I didn’t check it very often anyway, but I was interested to see what I’d find.

           

What I found was a friend request and 18 messages from Basilton Pitch. He hadn’t had a Facebook before—I’d looked—and it was pretty clear he’d made this account just to contact me. He had 5 friends and no profile pictures. I scanned the messages just long enough to see _Couldn’t you have at least said goodbye?_ and _Please just tell me you’re all right._

I had a couple of messages from Penny, too, and she and I were friends on Facebook. I thought of blocking them both, but instead I gave in to panic and deleted my account altogether.

 

           

Near the end of summer, Agatha said to me, “You were a teacher, right? Before?” I said yeah. She said her parents’ school needed a Year 1 teacher.

           

Her parents had moved up to Sheffield for the sole purpose of starting an independent school in one of the rougher parts of town. They sponsored most of the students who attended. Agatha worked there, too. I fixed up my CV and got hired.

           

Meanwhile, Agatha and I kept looking for my uncle, to no avail.

           

Meanwhile, I still thought about Baz every single day.

 

 

**Now**

           

Early December. Agatha came into my classroom at the end of the school day. I didn’t hear her. I was wiping the board, my back to the door.

           

“Simon Snow,” she said.

           

I turned around. “Hullo, Agatha. How was your day?”

           

She stood in the doorway smiling at me. Then I realised what I’d done, and it was like I could feel the blood drain from my face.

           

“How did you know that name?” I asked.

           

She came in, closed the door, and sat down at one of my students’ desks. “I haven’t been checking up on you, Simon. This information just fell into my lap. You see, my parents were having this dinner party last night, and one of their friends from down south was there, and he got to talking about a neighbour of his who’s been desperately looking for an employee who disappeared a few months ago. Simon Snow.” She said the name slowly this time, like she was mulling it over. “He was tutoring this man’s sister before he vanished out of the blue. I thought that story sounded familiar. Then my parents’ friend pulled up the missing notice that’s been posted. And it was you. Your picture. You’re lucky I’m the only one who recognised you.”

           

By then, I’d collapsed into my desk chair. Agatha was scrolling through her phone, and she held it out to me. There was my face, smiling in full colour. I had never seen the picture, but I was clearly sitting in the garden of Pitch Manor, and I suddenly remembered Baz taking it a few days after we got together.

           

Below the picture was a bit of text. My name, age, a physical description, and the date I disappeared. There was a number to call and an offer of a monetary reward.

           

Baz was looking for me? Baz was offering money to anyone who could find me?

           

I felt myself welling up. I glanced at Agatha, and she looked worried.

           

“I’m not going to ask,” she said quietly. “I’ve heard things about this man. Basilton Pitch. Lots of my parents’ friends are acquainted with his family, and there’s so many strange rumours about him. Terrifying rumours. If you’re hiding from him—if that’s why you changed your name—I can understand that. But something still didn’t make sense. Why would Basilton Pitch be so desperate to find an employee? Who he could probably replace easily? I thought about it all night. And I thought about how it’s been weeks, and you never said anything about running away with me, or even going on a date. And I thought about how you always look like you want to be somewhere else. And I think I’ve figured it out.”

           

I sat there staring at my picture and didn’t say a word.

           

She sighed. “Oh, Simon, you don’t have to tell me. You know if you need help, I’ll help you. But I hope this won’t make you think about contacting him. If anything I’ve heard about him is true, then you’re safer here.”

           

“What have you heard?” I asked.

           

She bit her lip like she didn’t want to say. But then— “Honestly? I’ve heard he killed someone.”

           

_He probably did. I don’t know. I wanted to marry him but he probably killed someone and I don’t know._

           

Agatha turned away and pretended not to notice my tears.

           

After a few minutes, I collected myself and started packing my bag to leave.

           

“I’ll walk you home,” she said. “It’s on my way, anyway.”

           

It was already dark out, just before 5 p.m. As we walked, Agatha said, “We really should run away. This is all the more reason. You don’t have to come as my boyfriend, all right? Just my friend. We could get a place together.”

           

I found myself seriously considering it. Would going to America make me think of him less? It would at least lessen the chances of him ever finding me.

           

Just as I was opening my mouth to say I might go, I heard someone calling my name. Loudly, frantically, just behind me. I knew that voice. I’d know it anywhere. I’d know it if I were dead.

           

He’d found me.          

           

I turned around, and—

           

Nothing. The street behind us was empty.

           

“What’s wrong?” said Agatha.

           

I barely heard her. “Where are you?” I called out. He had to be there.

           

And again, I heard his voice clearly. “Simon, Simon.” It was like he was standing right next to me.

           

“I’ll find you,” I said, even though I had to be imagining it, had to be going crazy. “Wait for me.”

           

I stood still, hoping for a reply, but the world had gone silent again.

           

Agatha grabbed my arm. “What’s going on? Who are you talking to?”

           

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I thought I heard—”

           

I turned away, and we walked on. By the time we’d reached my door, I’d made a decision. I wouldn’t be going to America.

           

He was looking for me. I’d asked him to wait. And there was no denying what even the ghost of his voice could still do to me.

           

“Agatha,” I said, “I think I need a few days off.”

 

           

The next day, I woke up early and spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon on trains and buses to get to Hampshire and then on to Pitch Manor. I walked the last bit, from the village up to the house. I passed the spot where I’d first met Baz. As I got closer, I tried to glimpse the roof through the trees, but where it should have been, I saw nothing.

           

I turned into the drive. Where it crested, and I expected to see the house in front of me, I saw—

           

Ruins. The foundation was there, and the shell of the walls. They were charred from fire.

           

I knew what fire meant where Baz was concerned. I instantly imagined the worst, and it brought me to my knees. Baz, was he… had he… could he have possibly…?

           

After a couple of minutes of staring, uncomprehending, I forced myself back up and went closer to the house.

           

I could see the remains of the roof, where they’d fallen in. The bottom of the stairs was still intact, and some of the borders between the first-floor rooms were still visible. Everything else was gone.

           

I stood in the ruins for a few minutes, trying to think what to do. Should I call someone? If so, who? Agatha?

           

I needed to know what had happened to Baz and the girls. Then I remembered someone who would know.

           

I strode across the fields to Ebb’s house, and I was glad to see her before I even arrived. She was tending her goats, as usual, but when she saw me coming, she dropped her staff and walked up to meet me. “Simon! You’re back!” she called out.

           

“How have you been, Ebb?” I asked, mustering a smile.

           

“Same as ever,” she said. “It’s been dull around here lately, without you and all the others from up at the manor.”

           

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about,” I said. “I was just there and saw that it had burned. What on earth happened?” I tried to stay calm as I asked her.

           

“What happened to _you?”_ she asked. “We’ve all been so worried.”

           

“Oh, I’m all right, don’t worry,” I assured her.

           

“But Simon! You just disappeared!”

           

“I’ve been teaching up North. I’m just fine.”

           

She examined me carefully, like she might be able to read the truth on my face. “Baz didn’t know about that, did he?” She turned and beckoned me up to the house, and we sat down on her porch chairs. “He was so worried,” she said.

           

“Is he all right?” I blurted. It was the only thing I wanted to know. “After the fire? What happened, exactly?”

           

She didn’t answer. “Do you know, I’ve never seen anyone as much in love as he was with you. I remember one night I came up to the house to talk to him, and he told me he’d kissed you five minutes before, and he felt like he was flying. But you seemed happy, too. So much happier when you were with him than when I first met you.”

           

She was twisting the knife. Did she realise that? I’d never known Ebb to be cruel.

           

“And then when you went away—” she began to tear up— “he was devastated. I think he called just about everyone he knew. He put up posters in town. He got it on the local news and all over the internet. Where were you that he couldn’t find you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “He looked as hard as anyone could’ve. After a while, I think he thought it was hopeless, and then he just shut himself up in the house. Didn’t go anywhere. Didn’t see anyone.”

           

All I could see was him standing in the woods that night, silhouetted by flames, waiting for them to consume him. Did I push him back to that point? If I had, I would never forgive myself.

           

“Always so proud,” she said, more to herself than to me. “Held himself apart from everyone. You changed all that. But when you were gone, he started to isolate himself again. He even made Penny leave for a while, but you know her, she wouldn’t stay away.”

           

I was past desperation, moving on to frenzy, to overwhelming fear. “What happened in the fire, Ebb? Please?”

           

She looked at me like she’d forgotten I was there. “The fire? Oh, well, you saw. Everything’s gone.”

           

“But did everyone make it out?”

           

I held my breath as she sighed and said, “Oh, yes, they made it out, just not quite the same as before.”

           

What did that mean? “How so?”

           

“Well, I don’t know if he’d want me to say, but—” she bit her lip, considering. “Baz was hit by a falling beam. Got him right in the face.”

           

She’d said he’d made it out. He wasn’t dead. Surely. Was he in a coma? Paralysed?

           

“He lost his sight,” she said. “He’s blind.”

           

We sat silently for a few minutes. I didn’t know what to think or feel. I hated to think of him hurt. I hated to think that those brilliant eyes of his couldn’t see anymore. But he was alive. Safe. That was the most important thing.

           

I was opening my mouth to ask where he was staying when Ebb asked me in for a cup of tea. I sat down at her rough wooden table and watched her bustle around the kitchen, putting the kettle on, finding cups, humming to herself a bit. Then she came over and threw herself sideways onto a chair, setting honey and milk down between us. Before I could even take a sip, she said, “Why did you leave? I couldn’t understand it at all.”

           

I winced. I hadn’t had to answer to anyone about what I’d done. Could I tell her the truth?

           

Then I remembered, Ebb already knew. I thought back to that terrifying night, to the bite marks on her neck. She’d obviously forgiven him for attacking her.

           

After a long pause, I said, “I was scared.”

           

She gave me a sympathetic look. “What for?”

           

I looked away. It was so hard to say—

           

“I found out the truth about Baz.”

           

She studied my face for a long time. I didn’t make eye contact. I could tell she was thinking hard. Quietly, she said, “He would never have hurt a hair on your head.”

           

“So I was just supposed to be okay with him hurting other people?” I blurted. An anger I’d never really acknowledged surged in me. I was so angry with him for his lies and his midnight prowls and his lack of control that had led to Ebb’s injuries.

           

But Ebb was shaking her head, looking confused. “Hurting other people? What people?”

           

“You, Ebb!” When she still didn’t seem to understand, I gestured at my neck. “And probably others.”

           

Her whole expression changed to one of comprehension and pity. “Oh. Oh, Simon. Baz didn’t do that to me. You know he’s not the only one of his kind, right? One of my brother’s friends had crashed the party, and he’s the one who hurt me.”

           

I thought about Nico’s insinuations and his strange, sharp teeth. Was he like Baz? And he had friends who were, too? Was Ebb one of them now?

           

Then another, stronger realisation hit me. _Baz hadn’t bitten Ebb_.

           

When I’d seen him that night, the night before I left, he’d been drinking from a bird. Not a human being. And yes, I’d seen him hovering over Penny, but she’d said he would never hurt her.

           

I struggled for words. “Then he didn’t—he never—” I breathed deeply and tried again. “Do you know if he ever bit anyone?”

           

She shook her head vehemently. “Simon, no, no! We’ve discussed it. He made a vow to himself to never bite a person. He only bites animals to survive.”

           

I slumped, head in my hands. “I’ve made a huge mistake,” I said.

           

“It’s not too late,” said Ebb.

 

           

I borrowed her car. I couldn’t wait. I promised to get it back to her within two days. I made it up to Oxford in an hour and a half and got lost on winding roads outside of town, looking for the Pitches’ hunting lodge. Ebb said he’d moved there. She’d given me the address.

           

The house was quite a bit off the road, and even though it wasn’t too far from town, it felt very far away from anything. I pulled up around 5 p.m. I’d been in such a hurry to get to him, and now that I was so close, I was overcome with anxiety. What could I even say to him? Would he forgive me for disappearing? For misjudging him?

           

As I sat there waiting, the front door opened. The very person I longed to see stepped outside.

           

It gave me a jolt, seeing him again after so long. I waited for him to react to seeing me, but then I remembered, he couldn’t.

           

I opened the car door, ready to jump out and run to him, but something held me back. He paced a bit around his small garden. His steps were uncertain, and he held himself like he was bracing for impact. _He isn’t used to it yet,_ I thought. _Not seeing._ He paused and turned his face up to the sky. His whole posture seemed defeated. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him defeated. He held out his hands, palm up, and I realised he was checking for rain. It was cloudy, but he couldn’t tell.

           

I saw him sigh. He turned and went back inside.

           

I slid out of the car. Closed the door as quietly as I could. Walked up to the house, took a long, shaky breath, and knocked.

           

It wasn’t Baz who answered. It was Penny. She stared at me for a moment like she couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Then, without a word, she pulled me into a hug. We stood there in the doorway for a long time, just holding onto each other. Finally, she said, “Are you all right?”

           

Being with Penny again was such a relief, like exhaling air I’d been holding in for way too long. “Yes. Yes. Are you?”

           

“Better now,” she said, pulling back and smiling at me. “Simon. It’s really you.”

           

I nodded happily. _I’m home,_ I thought. Then I thought about Baz and everything Ebb had told me. “I heard about the fire,” I said, “and what happened to Baz. Are you okay?”

           

“Mordelia and I got out right away,” she said. “Baz was the only other person there. He went back in for something. We tried to stop him. He barely made it back out.”

           

I couldn’t imagine Baz willingly putting either of them in danger by setting a fire inside. Had things gotten out of control? I shook that thought, because it didn’t matter right now. “I need to see him,” I said.

           

She smiled at me, sad and knowing.

           

I wasn’t sure what to make of that look. “I’m sorry for disappearing. I’ll tell you everything, I promise. I just need to see him right now.”

           

She hugged me again. “I know,” she said. She handed me a glass of water. “I was just about to take this to him. He’s in the lounge.” She pointed down a hall and to the right.

           

I walked down the hall slowly, feeling like I was in a trance. I got to the door, and all I could think was, _he’s right there. When I step through this door, I’ll see him, I’ll talk to him_.

           

It was a bit ajar. I pushed it open to see him slumped in a chair, leaning his head on one hand, staring out the window, though I supposed he wasn’t really staring at anything. He looked melancholy, but in a bored, habitual way. He was used to feeling miserable. I hated that.

           

I took a step into the room, and I saw him hear me. He sat up a little. I went close enough to him to set the water next to him, then hastily retreated towards the door. I didn’t leave. I was just scared. Again. I didn’t know what to say.

           

He sighed. “Penny, will you help me off with my shoes? I’m too tired to move.”

           

I took a shaky breath. “Gladly,” I said.

           

He cocked his head and frowned, like he could tell something was wrong with her voice, but he couldn’t place what from that one word.

           

I moved closer to him, trembling. I knelt in front of him and began to unlace his shoes.

           

“Do you think I should wear the green suit to the club tomorrow or the grey?” he asked.

           

I swallowed hard and said, “I don’t know. Either.”

           

He jerked suddenly, and I sprang backwards to avoid being kicked. “You’re not Penny!” he said, sounding a bit betrayed. “Who are you?”

           

I wasn’t ready to say. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “She knows I’m here.”

           

His arms began to flail, and he sputtered. I’d never seen Baz Pitch at a loss for words, and it made me smile a little. He was reaching out for me, but I was too far away and frozen in place. Then he said, “Where did you go?” in such an anguished tone that it reminded me of our last night together. I couldn’t let him suffer anymore, so I moved forward and took his hand.

           

“I’m right here,” I said.

           

He held my hand tight in both of his. “Is it really you?” he asked, echoing Penny.

           

“Yes, it’s me,” I said softly.

           

Touching him grounded me. I felt like everything was going to be all right.

           

His eyes roved but didn’t settle on me. His eyebrow was quirked, as always, but he looked overwhelmed instead of proud. “Simon Snow?” he asked, and I laughed.

           

“Yes.”

           

“I must be going mad—I must be dreaming—”

           

“I doubt you’re any madder than you were before.” I couldn’t stop smiling; his mouth twitched, too.

           

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

           

What did he think? “I’m here to be with you,” I said. He tugged on my arm and pulled me in closer. I touched his face, that soft skin, and he leaned into me, running hands up down my arms. “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry, Baz.”

           

He pulled back a bit but didn’t let go of me. “You’re here because you pity me, then?”

           

I watched as he tried to force his facial expression back to that cool, impassive veneer I knew so well. He couldn’t quite do it. He was close to tears. “I’m here because I missed you,” I said, running my free hand through his hair. I’d never seen it so dishevelled. “I went to the old house to find you, but it was gone, so I went to Ebb, and she told me everything.”

           

“You missed me?” He buried his face in my shoulder. I was on the floor in front of his chair. His words came out muffled. “I missed you! I’ve looked everywhere for you, for months! I was honestly starting to wonder if you were dead.”

           

I fought the urge to shrug. “I’m not.”

           

“I wouldn’t have made you stay,” he said. “Why didn’t you just tell me where you were going? I would’ve helped you. I’ve gone crazy wondering if you were all right—”

           

“I’m all right.” I kept playing with his hair.

           

“I kept thinking, he doesn’t have anywhere to go. No family. No friends that you ever talked about.” I didn’t deny that. “So where did you go?”

           

“I’ve been in Sheffield,” I told him.

           

“Why there?”

           

“It’s a long story.”

           

“I’m not exactly lacking for time, Simon.” He sounded annoyed, but when I pulled back to look at his face, he was smiling a little.

           

I didn’t want to stop touching him, but my legs were starting to hurt from kneeling. “Come sit with me on the sofa,” I said. “I’ll explain everything.”

           

I led him over to it, and we sat facing each other and holding hands. It was odd to see him looking at me as I spoke, but without his eyes ever quite focusing. I told him about the letter from the solicitor and the money from my grandmother.

           

“Okay, I wouldn’t dream that,” he said, “so you must really be here. But this makes me hate your father all the more.”

           

“Why?”

           

“He could’ve given you to her. It sounds like she wanted you and missed you. You could’ve grown up loved.”

           

I decided to put that on my list of things not to think about. Instead of answering, I told him about going to Sheffield to find my uncle and months of searching for him unsuccessfully.

           

“We’ll keep looking,” Baz said resolutely. “I’ll help you. Not that I’m particularly great at finding people. I certainly tried.”

           

“You’re better at it than you think,” I said. “I actually found out yesterday that you were looking for me, so the news did eventually travel all the way to Sheffield. That’s part of the reason I came here.”

           

He squeezed my hands. “How did you find out?”

           

“Apparently you have some mutual friends with my friend Agatha. She heard the story and figured out it was me. Do you know her? Agatha Wellbelove?”

           

“I know a Dr. Wellbelove,” he said.

           

“Yeah, that’s her dad.”

           

“You never mentioned them before.”

           

“I just met her a few months ago,” I said. “She helped me find a job and a place to live in Sheffield. She’s very nice. We’ve gotten to be—” I tried to think how to explain it. She wasn’t family to me, like Baz and Penny, but I wouldn’t have survived the past few months without her. Finally, for lack of a better word, I settled on “close.”

           

Baz let go of my hands and frowned. “Close,” he repeated. “Like…?”

           

“We work together. She comes around to mine a lot outside of work. She’s trying to get me to travel with her.”

           

“Have an adventure,” he said.

           

“Yeah. She really wants to get out of Sheffield.”

           

He stood abruptly and started pacing around the room. “She’s found the right person, then,” he said. “You’d go anywhere.”

           

“I guess.” I was confused.

           

“Does she know you’re here?” he asked.

           

“Yes…”

           

“Does she know about you and me? What we were?”

           

“She knows you were looking for me. Baz, why are you asking?”

           

He turned towards me, and his face was as miserable as when I’d first walked in. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on here, Snow. You found out I was looking for you, and you felt a bit guilty, so you came looking for me. Ebb told you about the fire, and then you felt even guiltier, and you’re here to see if I’m all right. Then you’ll go back to Sheffield and _Agatha_.”

           

I started to see the problem. I stood up and threw my arms around him. “I’m here because I wanted to see you. And yeah, I probably have to go back to Sheffield since I still have a job there, but I’m not going back to _her_. We’re not together. And I’m not just going to disappear again, either. I came back because I love you, and I want to be with you.”

           

Baz sank into me and put his head on my shoulder. It seemed like he might collapse, so I took him back to the sofa. I held his face in both my hands and said, “Baz, I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s all right.”

           

He had tears in his eyes again, but he was smiling and nodding.

           

I wondered how I’d believed I could go the rest of my life without kissing Baz Pitch. I was pretty sure my lips had been perfectly designed to fit with his. I slid my hand into his hair again, and when we separated, neither of us let go of each other. I scooted closer and leaned against him.

           

We sat like that for a long time, until he eventually said, “I might regret asking this, but—” He paused, trying to formulate the words. It was odd, again, to see him struggle to speak. “You’re not afraid of me anymore? Like when you left?”

           

I sat up. I wished he could see my face, so he’d know that I wasn’t.

           

“I know it’s disgusting,” he added quietly.

           

“Ebb set me straight today, Baz,” I said. “I was afraid and upset because I thought you were attacking humans. I thought you were the one who hurt Ebb, and I figured that wasn’t just a one-time thing. But she told me today that it wasn’t you, and that you only ever bite animals, and that’s just to get by.”

           

I watched him listen carefully and nod slowly. “I didn’t realise that’s what you thought. It makes perfect sense. I wish I’d explained that to you then, if it would’ve made a difference.”

           

It definitely would have, but I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to make him feel worse.

           

“The animals—the hunting—that doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

           

“If that’s what you have to do to survive, then no,” I said.

           

He smiled, but it was fleeting. “And what about—” he gestured to his eyes— “this?”

           

 _Oh, Baz,_ I thought. How could he think I’d care about that? “I’m sorry for you,” I said, “but it doesn’t make any difference to me.”

           

He sighed. “I feel like a burden to everyone. It’s been such a hard transition. It’s only been about a month since I’ve been out of hospital, and I feel like I can’t do anything for myself. I can’t even read. I feel like it’ll take me forever to relearn.”

           

“I’ll read to you until you do,” I said. That seemed to please him.

           

“I probably look ghastly now, too. I know I’ve got a big scar here—” he rubbed beside his left eye.

           

He actually had a few new scars on his face. The one he was pointing at was silvery and shaped like a crescent moon, and I loved it. “You’re as beautiful as ever,” I told him, and I went in for another kiss.

           

“Tosh,” he said, but he grinned wider.

           

“I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe me,” I said. “And the whole ‘I love you and I’m not going to abandon you again’ thing, too.”

           

After a while, Penny crept in and found us snogging madly on the sofa. We both jumped, startled, when she loomed over us and said, “I take it you’ve sorted things out?”

           

I actually fell in the floor and started laughing. Baz reached for me. “Where’d you go?” I took his hand.

           

Penny was laughing, too, and she said, “I just came to see if you’re hungry. Simon, you should know, this one never eats.” She pointed at Baz in an accusatory way.

           

“I do!” he protested.

           

“You certainly will tonight,” I told him.

           

Penny offered to drive into town for takeaway as long as Baz paid, and he offered up a card easily. She came back about 45 minutes later with Thai, and my stomach rumbled loudly as soon as I smelled it. Somehow, we all ended up sitting on the lounge floor eating together. I noticed that Baz covered his mouth while he ate—I had seen him do it before, and I suddenly realised it was to hide his fangs. But that hardly mattered anymore.

           

Penny asked me probably a hundred questions about what I’d been doing since I left. Baz kept chiming in with things like, “Oh, I’d been wondering that, too” and “But what about--?”

           

After a while, I thought to ask about Mordelia. “Where is she?”

           

Penny nudged Baz, and he said, “I took your advice, Simon, and sent her to school this year. I found one in London that was better able to accommodate her—they have special courses for ill children. I didn’t want her in a dormitory, so she’s living with one of our cousins. You were right, though. She’s happier.”

           

I mulled that over for a minute. “I’m glad,” I said. After some hesitation, I voiced my fears. “I bet she hates me for leaving so suddenly, without saying goodbye. I was afraid you all would.”

           

“Simon, no!” said Penny. “We were just worried.”

           

“I understood why you left,” said Baz glumly. “I wasn’t surprised.”

           

“But Mordy—”

           

“She missed you,” said Penny. “We weren’t sure what to tell her. She doesn’t know about… the secret, so we told her you had an emergency that took you away. She kept hoping you’d call or something.”

           

I felt awful.

           

“And then she accused me,” said Baz. “She thought it was all my fault. She assumed one of us had broken up with the other. Actually—” he paused. “Actually, when she said that, it occurred to me that you hadn’t properly broken things off, and I wondered if that meant anything.”

           

“I couldn’t say it was over,” I said. “I loved you too much.”

           

He smiled a little. “And now?”

           

I smiled back and took his hand again. “I still love you too much.”

           

Penny mimicked retching, but she was smiling, too.

           

“Anyway,” I said, “I’m glad Mordelia’s happy. I’d like to see her.”

           

“She’ll be here soon for the Christmas holiday,” said Baz. “Will you come back for that? Or—well, how long are you staying? Are you staying tonight?”

           

“If you’ll have me,” I said. He scoffed. “I can stay for a few days, then I have to go back to work. But I’ll gladly come here for Christmas if I’m allowed.”

           

Penny shoved me. “Of course you are!”

           

Later, when she’d left the room, Baz leaned into me and said, “You’re allowed to stay forever, you know. If you want.”

           

“I want,” I said.

           

We spent the rest of the evening sitting together, mostly quiet. “Let’s put on a record!” I said.

           

He frowned. “I don’t have them anymore. They burned. So many of my parents’ things…”

           

“Oh, Baz, I’m sorry!” I said, aghast. “I’d forgotten.” I began to really understand how much had been lost in that fire. I decided right then that I’d replace all of his records. In the meantime, I’d just serenade him myself.

           

“I saved a few things,” he said. “I stupidly kept going back for more. That’s how this happened—” he pointed to his eyes again. “Penny kept trying to stop me. She was right.”

           

I remembered my initial thought when I saw the ruins. Could I ask him…? I struggled with the words. “Baz, did you… I mean, you didn’t, you know, try to hurt yourself again. Did you? Is that why the fire happened?” He didn’t seem to understand what I meant. “Like that night in the woods,” I added.

           

“Oh… No, Simon, that’s not—” He sighed and rubbed his face. “No, this one really was an accident, some electrical problem, but it’s awfully ironic, isn’t it?”

           

“I was afraid it was my fault,” I said. “You know… Because I left.”

           

He shook his head. “I had this goal of finding you. Not to make you come back to me, just to see that you were all right. And that kept me going, in a way.”

           

“Okay,” I said. We were quiet for a while, and I thought about the records again. “What did you save from the house?” I asked him.

           

“Mmm… A few favourite books. Some work files. Mordy’s teddy. And your pictures.”

           

“You did _not_ go back for my pictures!” I said, alarmed.

           

He shrugged. “They were irreplaceable.” Then he turned and felt around for his wallet on one of the side tables. “I always have this one with me,” he said, and he pulled out the one I’d put outside his room when I left. It was folded, and I saw my own handwriting. _Goodbye_. “It’s not much good to me now—none of them are, since I can’t see them. But it’s nice to know I have them.”

           

I unfolded it and looked at our smiling faces. I was unbearably sad about Baz’s vision and the other casualties of the fire. And I was sad about all the months we’d spent missing each other. The separation had been so unnecessary. But at least now we could have thousands more moments like the one in the picture.

           

“Is there such a thing as a Braille photograph?” I asked him.

           

He smiled. “There’s 3-D images, I suppose.”

           

“I’ll learn how to make those,” I said determinedly.

           

He came in close and wrapped his arms around me. “And this is why I love you,” he said.

           

We kept on talking into the night about everything that had happened while we were apart and a lot about the future, too, like how we would make things work long-distance while I was in Sheffield.

           

At one point, he said abruptly, “You know, the strangest thing happened yesterday. I wonder if it was some kind of premonition. I was having a particularly bad day, missing you terribly. I went outside and just sort of screamed your name, and I could’ve sworn I heard you respond. You said I should wait for you.” He shrugged. “I probably imagined it.”

           

I squeezed his hand and didn’t say anything. Someday, maybe I would tell him that I’d heard him, too.

           

           

Later, I was nearly falling asleep on the sofa, and he pulled me up gently and said, “Simon, let’s go to bed.”

           

“Mm-hmm,” I agreed.

           

“Will you spend the night with me?”

           

“’Course,” I said sleepily.

           

He led me upstairs to a room much smaller than his old one, but also much cosier and prettier. Some of my other pictures were lined up on his dresser. He lent me something to sleep in, since I’d left my bag in Ebb’s car. We lay down tangled together, and I fell asleep easily, lulled by the rise and fall of his chest.

 

           

I woke up with the burning certainty that I was in Baz Pitch’s room. I was pleased when I rolled over and saw that it was true—there he was, lovely and soft in the morning light. He reached for my hand and smiled. “You really are here,” he said. “I didn’t dream it.”

           

“I’m as real as you are,” I said, “and you’re not getting rid of me again.”

           

I slid a little closer and kissed him good morning.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Carry on Big Bang. Lovely art by neck-mole on Tumblr: https://neck-mole.tumblr.com/post/182715267835/carry-on-big-bang-a-curious-sort-of-bird
> 
> I'm @elaboratebeauty on Tumblr, let's be friends!


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